Huawei launched the Hongmeng system, which was called "empty city plan" by netizens.

Huawei launched the Hongmeng system, which was called "empty city plan" by netizens.

Ren Zhengfei said recently that Huawei has no plans to develop an independent mobile operating system.

This news completely broke some previous speculations, including the expectation that Hongmeng, which has never been disclosed, will be an alternative to Google’s Android-developed, independently developed smartphone system. Some netizens commented that Huawei is using Hongmeng to play the " empty city plan " in the face of US sanctions .

In fact, according to Sina.com, as early as July 12, 2019, Huawei’s "2018 Sustainability Report" conference, Huawei Chairman Liang Hua said clearly when he talked about the Hongmeng system: "This Is the operating system developed for the Internet of Things, whether it is developed into a mobile phone system has not been determined." "If the United States does not allow Huawei to use Android, whether Huawei will develop Hongmeng into a mobile phone system, has not yet been determined."

In addition, on July 20, 2019, when Huawei’s founder Ren Zhengfei accepted an interview with Yahoo, he also made it clear that Hongmeng system can be used in many different IoT applications. This is also the fundamental purpose of Hongmeng system development, applied to the Internet of Things. . For example, smart watches, smart TVs, and smart car networking.

At the same time, Ren Zhengfei also said that only when Google Android can't be Huawei's only choice, Huawei will develop its own mobile operating system, but Huawei has no such plan yet.

At that time, many mainland Chinese netizens said that they felt very disappointed. They said that they had placed great expectations on the Hongmen mobile phone operating system, but finally waited for the news that the system has not yet started research and development. It turned out that Hongmeng was only an empty city that could only "small flags and shouts" on the city .

However, Yu Chengdong announced at the press conference on August 9 that if Huawei's mobile phone is banned from using Android, it will be able to use the Hongmeng system at any time, and at this stage it will be used for the glory TV smart screen that will be launched during the year. Hongmeng 2.0 will be launched next year, and version 3.0 will be launched the following year.

On the day when Huawei announced the Hongmeng system, US President Trump (Trump) further tightened sanctions against Huawei on Friday. He announced that the United States will not do business with Huawei, but if there is a trade agreement, the situation may change.

In May of this year, the United States listed the Chinese telecommunications giant Huawei as a trade blacklist for national security reasons. According to the decision, if a US company wants to supply Huawei with raw materials or services such as chips and semiconductors, it needs to obtain a special license.

Previously, Trump had revealed that when he met with Xi Jinping in Japan in June, China had promised to increase the purchase of US agricultural products. After that, the US side once relaxed its sanctions against Huawei. However, according to informed sources, after Beijing said it would suspend the purchase of US agricultural products, the White House also postponed the issuance of licenses for US companies and Huawei to restart business.

The new Hongmeng operating system is part of Huawei's huge plan to develop its own products from chip to software systems, with a view to reducing its reliance on US companies in the intensifying US-China trade war and to seize the commanding heights of technology in the future.

Huawei is not the first large technology company to try to develop a strong ecosystem around its own software. For example, Samsung's larger competitor, Samsung Electronics, has been using its own operating system called Tizen in smart watches and smart TVs. However, due to the lack of support from developers, Samsung’s efforts to push Tizen to challenge Android through smartphones have been unsuccessful.

At present, people use more mobile operating systems such as Google's Android system, Apple's iOS system, Nokia's Symbian system, BlackBerry's BlackBerry system, and Microsoft's Windows Phone system (including Windows Phone 7, Windows Phone 8, and Windows). 10 Mobile) and so on.

According to the Kay Mobile Communications Consumer Index, in the smartphone operating system market share in March 2019, Android ranked first (78.25%) with absolute advantage and iOS ranked second (21.7%).

On May 20 this year, Google announced that it would suspend some of its business with Huawei. This means that Huawei can only use the open source version of the Android operating system, cannot access proprietary applications and services from Google, and cannot upgrade.

The move has little impact on Huawei's internal market in China. Because of the CCP's restrictions, the Android phones sold in China are not allowed to install Google's services and applications, but instead install other local alternatives. Huawei will continue to get free access to the Android operating system through the Android open source project AOSP.


However, in markets outside China, if Android is used, vendors will basically have built-in Google services. For example, Google Chrome, Gmail, Google Play App Store, Google Maps, and more.

Some analysts said that even if Huawei's Hongmeng mobile phone system is successfully developed and officially launched in the future, how many developers, especially foreign developers, will join this ecosystem, which is still unknown. And this is the problem that a mobile phone system wants to survive and must be resolved. Given Huawei's reputation in the world with the "CCP label," the solution to this problem may not be easy.

At the press conference on Friday, Yu Chengdong also said that due to the US restrictions introduced in May, it has been difficult for Huawei to achieve its goal of becoming the world's largest smartphone manufacturer this year.