Huawei's HarmonyOS Could Be Available in 2021

During its developer conference, Huawei unveiled new upgrade to HarmonyOS. The company said their solution is the third-largest app ecosystem and could be available on smartphones in 2021.

"HarmonyOS 2.0 takes a big step to creating more connections across the entire mobile ecosystem, with a beta version for developers released 10 September for smartwatches and televisions, and an SDK for smartphones due in December," said Richard Yu, head of Huawei’s Consumer Business Group.

He added that the upgrade makes the platform fully open source. It currently works on devices with up to 128MB of RAM, with expansion to 4GB scheduled for April 2021 and a further bump prepared for October 2021. "The upgrade is not designed as a simple replacement for current smartphone OSes, but offers users value-added services including distributed data management and security capabilities," said Yu.

HarmonyOS was unveiled last year as a response to US trade restrictions covering hardware and software. Since then, Huawei campaigned to attract developers to its Huawei Mobile Services (HMS) and App Gallery. Despite challenging times, Yu said the company shipped 105 million smartphones in H1 and consumer unit revenue hit $37.4 billion. “Our business is growing fast, with some segments seeing 100 percent growth.“ HMS counts 1.8 million developers, with 490 million active users in 170 countries and 96,000 apps available, the company said.