In an interview with Le Point, Huawei Founder and CEO Ren Zhengfei revealed that HongMeng OS, Huawei’s home-grown replacement for the Android operating system, is ‘likely’ to be faster than not only Android but iOS as well.
In the said interview, the Chinese tech giant CEO revealed they are currently developing their own OS to minimize Huawei’s dependency on Google’s Android software. The said OS is expected to be 60% faster than Android, with less than 5 milliseconds processing delay.
However, while HongMengOS prides itself with multi-channel features, which include phones, cars, and even data centers, the CEO admitted the company is still struggling in developing a new app store that will replace Google PlayStore.
On May 15, the Trump administration added Huawei to the U.S. Department of Commerce’s Entity List via executive order. This made the Chinese tech giant blacklisted across all U.S. corporations. Four days after, Google released a public statement saying it will comply with the said order.
“We are complying with the order and reviewing the implications. For users of our services, Google Play and the security protections from Google Play Protect will continue to function on existing Huawei devices. Huawei will only be able to use the public version of Android and will not be able to get access to proprietary apps and services from Google,” the statement included.
And yet, on June 29, President Trump announced in a news conference that there will be a partial lift to the Huawei ban. In the said notice, he promised that “U.S. companies can sell their equipment to Huawei” again. However, there is still no specific date given as to when this partial lift will begin.
"Today, we are still committed to Microsoft Windows and Google Android. But if we cannot use that, we will prepare a plan B to use our own OS," commented one Huawei speaker.
News of Huawei developing its own operating system (OS) begun in May, following Google's public announcement it will obey the administration’s order. In June, the tech giant began trademarking the HongMeng name and requested developers to publish their apps on its AppGallery app store.
Richard Yu, CEO of Huawei Technologies Consumer Business Group, revealed that HongMengOS will debut this fall in China. Others speculate that the much-awaited launch could be in line with the release of the Huawei Mate 30 line, which is scheduled to be revealed later this year.
