Chinese company Huawei Technologies (HWT.UL) announced that it will launch its new Harmony operating system for smartphones on June 2, its biggest move to date to recover from the damage caused by US sanctions to its business. of mobile telephony.

Using its own operating system will mean it will no longer depend on Android. U.S. sanctions have banned Google (GOOGL.O) from providing technical support for new models of Huawei phones and from accessing Google Mobile Services, the set of development services on which most Android apps are based.

It was not immediately clear if it will launch new smartphones at the same time or if there will be updates for existing phones or how quickly the rollout could happen.

The new HarmonyOS will only partially help mitigate the impact of the 2019 sanctions which also prevented Huawei from accessing critical US-sourced technology, hampering its ability to design its own chips and source from external vendors. .

Once the world’s largest smartphone maker, Huawei now ranks 6th globally with a 4% market share in the first quarter.

The previous Trump administration argued that the Chinese telecommunications giant posed a threat to U.S. national security – a charge Huawei has denied.

Huawei CEO Ren Zhengfei this week called on staff to “dare to rule the world” in software in an effort to move into business areas that cannot be affected by US sanctions, according to a memo. internal consulted by Reuters.

The company will need to take a more “open source” approach to development and should try to attract more overseas software experts as part of the pivot, he said. Read more

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