“While Huawei could sponsor developers to bring apps for HongMeng OS, it could take years for its app store to reach where the Google Play Store is now”

Following the order of the US president Donald Trump, Google suspended most of its partnerships with the Huawei. This announcement will affect the availability of Android software to the vendor’s upcoming smartphones. However, the US Commerce Department has temporarily lifted the ban on the Chinese phone maker for 90 days. Huawei anticipated the move and has prepared its operating system for its devices. Now, according to Global Times, citing reports from Chinese media, ‘HongMeng’ could be the name of the Huawei’s mobile OS that would replace Android.

However, no other details surrounding the operating system are revealed and it also remains to be seen if Huawei would replace Android with its homegrown OS on its current phones, to push updates. Talking about its own OS, Richard Yu, in an interview back in March, said, “We have prepared our operating system. Should it ever happen that we can no longer use these systems, we would be prepared. That’s our plan B, But of course, we prefer to work with the ecosystems of Google and Microsoft.” This suggests that Huawei saw the move coming.

Even if Huawei launches its OS to replace Android, there are challenges like app support and convincing the mass audience, especially in markets like India. While it can sponsor developers to bring apps for this platform, it would still take years for it to reach where the Google Play app store, with 2.6 million apps, is now. Huawei has around three months before Google completely locks out the support, so it needs to act fast and polish the OS for a stable release.

Separately, Honor is gearing up to launch its Honor 20 and Honor 20 Pro handsets later today. Since Google might have already certified both the handsets, they would run on Android 9.0 with EMUI 9.0 out of the box.