An English-proverb says “Necessity is the mother of invention” and this seems to be the fate of Huawei at the moment.
The world’s second-largest smartphone maker, is reportedly working an Android replacement called ‘HongMeng’. The report suggests that the company has been working on the replacement to Google Android for the past seven years.
Truth be told, Huawei has only two options to the onslaught of attacks/bans from the US government and other companies – To lie low and die or fight back.
And growing its own independence outside the US and Europe, is one way of fighting back. It has the Chinese population of 1.4 billion to sell to; another 1.34 billion in India and 1.22 billion in Africa.
Considering the August 20th expiration of US President’s Donald Trump’s 90 temporary reprieve on the ban against Huawei, the company has increased its efforts to release its own proprietary OS that will be positioned as an alternative to Google Android.
It is expected that “HongMeng OS” as it will be named in China or “Ark OS” in Europe will be rolled out towards the end of this year of early 2020.
Not much is publicly known about HongMeng. There is widespread speculation that HongMeng will be built on the Android Open Source Project (AOSP), meaning Huawei plans to create a fork of Android like Amazon did with Fire OS for its tablets.
Building an operating system is not that easy but Huawei has both the resources and strong R&D muscle to develop one.
However the issue is not whether it can or cannot build one, but it is getting app developers to rewrite their apps to this new platform.
Other issues to consider include the following;
- “Won’t it die like other proprietary operating systems like the Blackberry OS or FireFox OS?
- Would Huawei’s HongMeng be able to scale and compete with Android’s 85% market share which has the most apps?
- How will Huawei survive without Google’s core services and apps?
- Will developers be willing to develop apps for this new platform?
- Even if Huawei brings Android app compatibility into its new OS, will they be able to persuade consumers?
- What can HongMeng offer that Android won’t/can’t?
These are all questions that Huawei’s strategic and product development teams must be spending sleepless nights brainstorming about.
What this Huawei ban shows is that even if the US changes its mind, Huawei will never forget. It wouldn’t want its future to be dependent on any government’s economic position.
For me, the terrain is open for a third OS after Android and iOS. Huawei’s HongMeng is a credible threat. It has an 80% to 90% chance of penetrating China, India and Africa and it can compete favourably with Android and iOS in America and Europe.
Imagine the likes of Transsion Holdings (makers of Tecno, itel and Infinix), Xiaomi, Vivo, Oppo, OnePlus joining Huawei in the use of HongMeng. It is even reported that Huawei’s Hongmeng OS is 60% faster than Android. This is the verdict from Chinese vendors Vivo and OPPO, who’ve tested the HongMeng. Presumably, both vendors intend to use Huawei’s “Hongmeng OS” in some of their upcoming devices.
An important note to consider is the growing market share of Chinese maufacturers. In the first quarter of 2019, the Chinese smartphone manufacturers accounted for 40% globally.
So the only opposition is from South Korean manufacturer, Samsung. And if it happens that HongMeng is now in fact better than Android, why wouldn’t Samsung consider HongMeng?
All I can say for now is that HongMeng is a credible threat. Google needs to watch out.
