Huawei is launching its own HarmonyOS mobile operating system on its handsets as it adapts to losing access to Google mobile services two years ago after the US put the Chinese telecommunications company on a trade blacklist.
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Huawei was expected to announce the launch of HarmonyOS on Wednesday for various devices including smartphones and tablets. Huawei's HarmonyOS smartphone rollout is a workaround for its lack of access to Google services, especially for smartphones that it sells abroad. While handsets that were sold prior to Huawei's blacklisting continue to run Google services, its newer devices will have no access to Google's mobile services or updates.
To solve this problem, Huawei launched its own Huawei Mobile Services (HMS) platform that lets developers launch apps for Huawei devices. In March, Huawei said that over 120,000 apps were now on its app store and using HMS, although it is still missing apps popular overseas such as Instagram, Twitter and Facebook.
Once the world's largest smartphone maker, Huawei fell out of the top five list globally last year, nudged aside by South Korea's Samsung, according to data from market research firm Canalys.
