On May 19, 2019, Google announced that it was banning Huawei. The company could not continue offering Google services and applications on its future phones, and that made many of us think the same.
Huawei seemed doomed.
The veto, part of a series of measures in the trade war between the US and China, was a missile on the waterline of its mobile business. At that time Huawei was about to catch up and surpass Apple and Samsung in global smartphone sales, but that blow seemed fatal.
Sales plummeted even in its home country, China. There were few escape routes, but little by little the company, which did not give up, took steps that have achieved something spectacular. Huawei has risen from the ashesand it has done so by overcoming that Western veto that extremely complicated the future of its mobile business.
In its favor it had a key factor: China. The Asian giant has become the absolute focus of Huawei’s smartphone business, and the government’s support has been coupled with notable strategic decisions that have always been aimed at the same thing: depending solely on themselves.
That strategy reminds of Applewhich in recent years has demonstrated its obsession with total control of its products both in the field of software and hardware. The Cupertino company has been eliminating external dependencies on its mobile phones and computers, and this has allowed it to have a level of absolute control of its ecosystem.
See you never, Android
Huawei seems to have approached that same milestone, and one of the keys has been the launch of HarmonyOS NEXT. This operating system is the evolution of HarmonyOS, which in preliminary versions was still based on AOSP, the Open Source version of Android that anyone can use… but which does not include Google services and applications (including Gmail, YouTube, Maps or the Play Store).
The new Huawei Mate 70 are a promising bet and not only for hardware: they are the first prepared to be used with HarmonyOS NEXT.
However HarmonyOS NEXT is an operating system created from scratch100% own and that will end up being adopted by the entire ecosystem of Huawei devices. Not only mobile phones, but also tablets, smart watches and even headphones.
HarmonyOS Next is not compatible with Android apps. Instead, it uses executables compiled specifically for that platform and which also rely on the so-called Huawei Mobile Services (HMS). The number of applications is currently very modest (15,000) but if everything goes as it seems, that number will grow rapidly in the coming months.
This will be helped by the fact that China is a lot of China. The Asian giant seems to have welcomed this renewed Huawei with open arms, and in just one year its market share has gone from 4% to 17% in that country. It has even surpassed Apple.
The strong demand for its devices will probably make developers also turn to the new operating systemand it will be interesting to see if Western software services and companies end up giving in and launching their products for HarmonyOS NEXT and its ecosystem. The first terminals prepared to use this operating system have just been launched: the Huawei Mate 70 and the foldable Mate X6 have generated great expectations.
Neither Microsoft nor Samsung succeeded
Huawei has managed to do something that no other company has achieved in recent years. The Apple-Google duopoly of the mobility industry has managed to dominate this market, but it is true that in the past there were attempts to make things change.
There are several examples, but the most notable are certainly those of Microsoft with Windows Phone and Samsung with Tizen. They both ended up throwing in the towel.but so did others like Ubuntu, Sailfish or Firefox OS. The attempts to propose options were always striking, but time after time they hit the same wall: the inertia of iOS and Android were too strong.
Neither Microsoft, nor Samsung nor the rest offered anything essentially better, and the maturity of these ecosystems caused both users and developers to create a vicious circle: the apps were on Android and iOS because the users were there, and vice versa. It was too difficult to compete with that situation.
But with HarmonyOS NEXT that inertia does not exist. Google has taken it upon itself with the veto. It is true that many manufacturers in China continue to bet on Android terminals, but Huawei’s success poses a unique future for the world of mobility, especially there.
It is unknown if Huawei will try to leave its borders with this operating system, but it would certainly seem like a reasonable move. Currently they continue to base their terminals—even the modern ones—on EMUI, but it will be interesting to see what the company decides in this regard.
In the meantime, one thing is clear: the launch of HarmonyOS NEXT marks a turning point in the mobility segment. It is already doing it in China: we will see if it ends up doing it in the rest of the world.
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