Huawei unveils new phone with own OS

Tech giant Huawei Technologies today launched its Mate 70 smartphone series, the first to be powered by its fully homegrown operating system (OS).

The new smartphone is equipped with HarmonyOS 5.0, previously known as HarmonyOS Next, Huawei’s homegrown mobile operating system that Huawei hopes to establish as a third major mobile operating system alongside Apple’s iOS and Google’s Android. 

Richard Yu, executive director of Huawei's Consumer Business Group, announces the official launch of Huawei Mate 70 in Shenzhen today. Photos from SZTV News

"Today, the long-awaited Mate 70, the most powerful one ever, is here," Richard Yu, executive director of Huawei's Consumer Business Group, announced at a launch event in Shenzhen.

The Mate 70 is the first mainstream smartphone to include a satellite paging system, has an improved processor and runs on Huawei's homegrown HarmonyOS Next operating system, Yu said.

"HarmonyOS Next is the first homegrown operating system, a milestone for China to move away from reliance on Western technologies for software with performance improvement," Gary Ng, a senior economist at Natixis, told AFP in a report today.

The launch further showcases Huawei’s strong comeback in the premium smartphone segment after rounds of U.S. sanctions in recent years against the Shenzhen-based giant once crippled its smartphone business. 

But it has since bounced back with soaring sales of high-end new phones such as Mate 60 series, launched in August 2023, and subsequent Pura 70 series, which hit the market in April this year.

More than 3 million Mate 70 phones have been pre-ordered on the company’s online shopping platform, though pre-orders do not require a purchase commitment.

Richard Yu, executive director of Huawei's Consumer Business Group, introduces the features of Huawei Mate 70 in a launch ceremony in Shenzhen today. 

The launch of the Mate 70 series is expected to further boost Huawei in its pursuit to reclaim lost ground in the premium handset segment. Huawei briefly overtook Samsung Electronics and Apple Inc. in global smartphone shipments before being impacted by U.S. sanctions starting in 2019.

HarmonyOS Next, currently under a public beta period that saw the OS move away from its Android roots, had more than 15,000 native apps and services as of Oct. 22, Xu Zhijun, Huawei’s rotating chairman, said at a conference Saturday in Shenzhen. 

More than 1 million users applied for an upgrade to the HarmonyOS Next version just two weeks after the public beta test started in early October, Xu said. 

But he urged more developers to support the HarmonyOS mobile platform ecosystem. “Having 100,000 applications is a symbol of maturity for the HarmonyOS ecosystem to meet consumer needs,” he said.