Yu reiterated that Huawei would prefer to use Android on its smartphones, but if it had to migrate to HarmonyOS, that would not be difficult. He said moving to the new OS would only take one or two days and it is “very convenient.”
“If we cannot use it (Android) in the future, we can immediately switch to HarmonyOS,” Yu said.
Neil Shah, analyst at Counterpoint Research, said the operating system is a “big opportunity” for Huawei in China to create a “unified platform” across various devices.
However, its success in smartphones will rely heavily on whether it can get developer support. Shah said that Google services are “still more robust and sticky, which is missing here for Huawei to be adopted.”
“So Huawei has the shop laid out nicely but needs better goods and services inside the shop to attract users, sell, and make them buy again and again,” Shah told CNBC.
