Hongmeng OS reportedly in preparation for being launched

An executive from Huawei said on Thursday that the company is in the process of potentially launching its “Hongmeng” operating system to replace Android OS.

Andrew Williamson, vice president of Huawei’s public affairs and communications, said in an interview that the company will “presumably” trademark Hongmeng, which he said has likely been rolled out to a million devices in China, reported Reuters.

“Huawei is in the process of potentially launching a replacement,” Williamson said in Mexico City. “It’s not something Huawei wants. We’re very happy of being part of the Android family, but Hongmeng is being tested, mostly in China. I believe it is already being rolled out over a million devices. Presumably, we’ll be trying to put trademarks,”.

According to our report, Huawei has already filed trademark application around the globe through multiple intellectual property organizations and most of the filing has been done after the US restrictions on the company.

Back in March, Yu Chengdong, CEO of Huawei’s consumer business group, publically accepted that the company has developed its own OS and will use it as a plan B if Huawei is prohibited from using Android or Windows.

Later on, he added. Huawei’s operating system could be ready by the fourth quarter of this year for the domestic market (Chinese) and a version for the global market in the first or the second quarter of 2020.

He forecast that if trade escalations between US-China convert into a full-scale trade war, Hongmeng would be ready to go “in months”.

“We’re not specifically asking anyone to lobby for us. They’re doing it by their own desire because, for many of them, Huawei is one of their major customers,” he said.

A well-known industry analyst has recently said that this OS won’t be directly applied to the flagship phones and expected to first come in low-end devices, so that the company can make it ready for the non-Chinese users, he also expected that it could meet a launch date in October but there’s no official confirmation available.