Huawei announces plans to go Android-free with 2025 devices

Huawei Technologies Co. said that from next year its new smartphones and tablets will run on an operating system stripped of Google’s open-source Android technology.

The company’s new flagship phone, the Mate 70, will debut HarmonyOS Next, the iteration of its operating system that does away with remnants of Android in favor of entirely indigenous tech. Announced at a live-streamed event on Tuesday, the new devices and software add to Huawei’s campaign to reclaim China’s premium tier from Apple Inc. and build an ecosystem without the involvement of major US tech providers.

Available on December 4, the Mate 70 and its Pro variants are the follow-up to Huawei’s most significant device in years, the Mate 60. Last year’s edition, powered by a made-in-China processor, brought Huawei back into the smartphone industry limelight and signaled its ability to work around US trade curbs designed to cut it off from the most advanced chipmaking.

HarmonyOS Next will still need another two to three months to improve its user experience, but the plan is to henceforth use it on upcoming gadgets, said Richard Yu, chairman of Huawei’s consumer business group.

The Mate 70 series, priced from ¥5,499 ($760) for the 6.7-inch edition, will offer 40% better performance than its predecessor, in part because of HarmonyOS Next, the executive said. Yu fell short of disclosing details of the processors that power the phones.

Shenzhen-based Huawei is expected to use its latest in-house Kirin chip for the new product line, though its performance increase may be less significant than Qualcomm Inc. and MediaTek Inc.’s top-end offerings, according to a note by Bloomberg Intelligence analysts Charles Shum and Sean Chen. “That suggests the new Huawei phone may struggle to capture the attention of non-Huawei Android users,” they wrote.

The rollout is a key part of Huawei’s relentless attempt to break free from years of US sanctions. The company now finds itself unable to advance from the 7nm chipmaking process for its smartphone and artificial intelligence chips until at least 2026. That’s at a time when competitors like Apple are about to move to 2nm technology for mainstream products, Bloomberg News reported.

Despite Washington’s blacklisting and technical challenges, Huawei managed to grow sales over the past seven quarters, with the help of an expanding smartphone business. Its shipments recorded four consecutive quarters of at least double-digit growth in China as of September, according to research firm IDC.

Huawei on Tuesday also announced a number of other products in its ecosystem, including a new tablet and a ¥23,999 gold-plated smartwatch. Earlier in the fall, the company introduced the world’s first trifold phone, also powered by chips that were designed in-house.

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