Huawei may be riding high on the launch of the P20 Pro this year thanks to its impressive three rear cameras, but not every aspect of 2018 is going all that well.
The company is not gaining traction with the wireless market in the United States as it originally intended, and it was reported recently that Huawei is also under criminal investigation in relation to violating certain sanctions tied to Iran. We saw a similar situation set in with another Chinese smartphone manufacturer, ZTE, where that company is facing a future where it may have its Android license revoked.
That may be a future for Huawei as well, depending on how the aforementioned criminal investigation goes and consequences made from it. However, Huawei may be working on a backup plan. Specifically, the company may be in the process of building its own mobile operating system as an alternative to Google’s Android.
The latest news comes from sources speaking with the South China Morning Post, which say that Huawei’s OS has actually been in the works since 2012. That’s when both Huawei and ZTE were initially investigated by the United States government, so it sounds like both companies were planning for worst-case scenarios.
One of the sources speaking with the publication says the Huawei alternative isn’t “as good” as Android and that there is very little support from third-party app developers. Huawei said that it “has no plans to release its own OS in the foreseeable future” when asked about the option of a proprietary mobile OS.
It isn’t a surprise to hear that Android would be a better OS at this point or have more third-party app support. Still, Huawei and ZTE may be forced to move to their own mobile operating systems soon, which means they’ll have to try to boost their own OS options soon.
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