9月14日早间英文播报：Huawei to use own operating system in its smartphones

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Yu Chengdong, CEO of Huawei's consumerbusiness group, announces HarmonyOS 2.0 at its annual developers' conference inDongguan, Guangdong province on Sept 10, 2020. [Photo by MaSi/chinadaily.com.cn]

Analysts:Move shows firm's resilience, tech prowess, but challenges still exist

Huawei Technologies Co said on Thursdaythat its in-house operating system HarmonyOS will be used in smartphones nextyear, marking a breakthrough in Chinese companies' efforts to commercializeself-developed operating systems and to build their own globally competitivesoftware ecosystems.

Analysts said the increasing use ofHarmonyOS showcases Huawei's resilience and technological prowess, butchallenges still exist as the latest US chip bans weigh on the company'ssmartphone business.

Yu Chengdong, CEO of Huawei's consumerbusiness group, announced on Thursday the HarmonyOS 2.0 system update at itsannual developers' conference in Dongguan, Guangdong province, and said thesystem will be used in its smartphones next year.

HarmonyOS was unveiled a year ago, afterWashington restricted Huawei from using Google's Android operating system inMay last year. HarmonyOS is arguably the biggest push by Huawei to build itsown software ecosystem, and it is already used in Huawei's smart TV products.

With the system upgrade, HarmonyOS will beused in smartwatches, personal computers and other internet of things deviceslater, Yu said.

The progress came after the US governmentexpanded a series of chip restrictions on Huawei in the past few months thathave limited its access to semiconductor components and equipment produced bycompanies using US technology.

Jia Mo, an analyst at market researchcompany Canalys, said the tightened restrictions will result in a shortage ofchips for Huawei to produce enough smartphones next year, which will make itdifficult for the company to popularize HarmonyOS on its handsets.

But the US government is also facingmounting pressure from the country's own semiconductor association and chipcompanies. This may force it to relax the regulations in the near future,experts said.

Gao Feng, a spokesman for the Ministry ofCommerce, said on Thursday that as a major global manufacturing powerhouse ofelectronic products, China's demand for semiconductors has been growingsteadily, and the nation has become a major driving force of the globalsemiconductor market.

Boston Consulting Group said in a reportthat if the US government increases restrictions on semiconductor trade withChina, this could endanger the country's own position as a leader in thesector.

BCG warned that if shipments of US chipsand chipmaking equipment to China were stopped, and China were to ban importsof US electronics and software, it could cost US companies 37 percent of theirannual sales.

To cope with Washington's restrictions on theuse of Google Mobile Services, Huawei has also been working hard to build theecosystem for Huawei Mobile Services, better known as HMS, which is thefoundation of its ability to sell smart devices in overseas markets.

Huawei said over 96,000 mobile applicationsare integrated with HMS. The number of developers of HMS now stands at over 1.8million.

Charlie Dai, principal analyst at marketresearch company Forrester, said: "The US government's bans leave Huaweino choice but to accelerate research and development to build an open techecosystem of its own, from hardware to software for smartphones. It's a toughjourney but Huawei must go through it to survive and thrive."

He said Huawei has made substantialtechnological progress in areas like audio, video and augmented reality forHMS, which effectively drives the growth of its developer ecosystem.

But currently, the growth was chieflydriven by domestic app developers, and more efforts are needed to attractoverseas developers to embrace HarmonyOS and HMS, said Xiang Ligang,director-general of the Information Consumption Alliance, a telecom industryassociation.

"Huawei has no choice but tocontinuously strengthen its products and grow its ecosystem. That will also bethe pathway for most Chinese companies to compete in the global arena,"Xiang said.

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记者：马思

播报：CorrieKnight

原文链接：

https://www.chinadaily.com.cn/a/202009/11/WS5f5aaedca310f55b25a81d25.html