Huawei statement on Russian phone maker testing HarmonyOS

A recent report regarding the use Huawei HarmonyOS operating system in BQ smartphones has now caught the attention of Huawei itself. As the phone maker has published a new statement on this matter.

What’s the matter:

Amid the Ukraine-Russia conflict, the U.S. has imposed sanctions on Russia, which includes the prohibition of the important goods and sales of services as well as hardware components to Russian companies. Under this ban, Russian smartphone makers cannot sell new devices made with Google Mobile Services (GMS).

Previous reports suggested that BQ could be internally resting Huawei HarmonyOS operating system, which is a major development that could take place in the overseas market. On the flip side, Huawei has said that the company has not planned any HarmonyOS smartphone launch outside of the Chinese market at the moment.

Through a news statement published by a Chinese online news outlet, Huawei said HarmonyOS devices with pre-equipped software has reached over 220 million by the end of 2021. The firm wrote that the company is excited to see that everyone is nowadays interested in the HarmonyOS software. Still, there’s no plan to launch HarmonyOS equipped phone in the overseas market.

BQ CEO:

BQ CEO Vladimir Puznov told Gazta.Ru that new BQ phones will launch without Google Mobile Services (GMS). However, the already launched devices will continue to work as usual with Android services without any issues.

Puznov was the first person to inform that his company has been banned from using Android core services on BQ devices due to the US sanctions of export or re-export as well as the transfer of essential technologies originated from the U.S. or U.S. based technologies.

“We believe that this [license revocation] will affect the entire market, including foreign manufacturers. It is likely that all Google services in the Russian Federation will be turned off. No official information from Google has yet been received. We assume that this will happen as suddenly as the suspension of licensing,” concluded Puzanov.

HarmonyOS Global:

Currently, Huawei has not taken any specific name on the list of available HarmonyOS global devices but in a statement to us, Huawei has also said the same current scenario for its global awaiters.

Therefore, the company had previously device to stick with EMUI software and launched EMUI 12 for global consumers. As of now, we’re unaware of any HarmonyOS global launch event but we’ll surely keep you updated with further developments.