China Tech giant Huawei has been working on a new operating system Hongmeng/ Ark since 2012. Over the last few weeks, Huawei has patented terms like Oak OS, Hongmeng and Ark OS. The development of this operating system comes on in a good time where Huawei has been banned from accessing Google Products. This comes after tough trade battles between China and USA. Hongmeng OS which is also called Ark OS is reportedly said to be 60% faster than the Android OS.
Huawei received a 90 day waiver period on using Google products. The second largest smartphone manufacturer is maximizing on the waiver period by releasing updates and security patches to the existing phones. Recently approximately 80 million Huawei smartphones received Android pie updates.
Will Hongmeng OS conquer the smartphone market?
Over the last 10-15 years, only iOS has been able to bring little competition against Googles Android which has dominated the market by 80%. Other Operating Systems such as Nokia’s Symbian and Microsoft failed to crack the market. However, Huawei is the second largest smartphone manufacturer after Samsung and who knows maybe they will overturn the tables. Additionally, people will consider using it since it is 60% faster than Android.
Huawei is calling on Developers to create and publish apps on its App Gallery which is similar to the Google play store. Huawei dominates in 5g network distribution and they are already working with many countries such as Russia, India, and Australia on rolling out the network to those countries.
Tencent has partnered with Huawei on testing the new operating system Hongmeng or Ark OS with brands such as OPPO and VIVO. Leaked screenshots show that Ark OS will probably be based on Android. However, its user interface resembles the UI for IOS and the biggest hurdle will be compatible with Android. Without android Compatibility, the sales of the upcoming release may hit rock bottom.