Why Huawei's Much Ridiculed New OS Could Still Have a Big Impact in Africa

Huawei officially launched HarmonyOS this week, its new mobile operating system. The company was forced to build its own in-house OS after the Trump administration banned it from accessing key U.S. technologies including Alphabet's Android. While Harmony is widely derided, even ridiculed among the U.S. and European tech press (described as the "fake it till you make it" OS), there may be a market for it in Global South countries. First, it'll allow Huawei to get back in the mobile phone market in developing countries where it's lost a lot of ground. This means Huawei's going to sell phones for cheap. Very cheap. Secondly, Huawei is promoting HarmonyOS less as an Android replacement and more as a platform for the Internet of Things (IoT) which could allow the Chinese tech giant to leverage its already sizable network infrastructure presence in Africa to develop new connectivity initiatives. Henry Tugendhat, a senior China policy analyst at the United States Institute of Peace in Washington, D.C., acknowledges that it's going to be tough going for HarmonyOS to gain traction in the market (remember PalmOS, Symbian, and Windows Mobile?) but he also thinks it would be unwise to write it off entirely. Henry joins Eric & Cobus to discuss the geopolitical dimensions of Huawei's new operating system and why he thinks it's important. JOIN THE DISCUSSION: CAP on Facebook: www.facebook.com/ChinaAfricaProject Twitter: @eolander | @stadenesque | @hentug SUBSCRIBE TO THE CHINA AFRICA PROJECT Your subscription supports independent journalism. Subscribers get the following: 1. The world's only curated China-Africa News Feed with thousands of articles archive 2. Exclusive analysis of the day's top stories about China in Africa and the Global South 3. A copy of the popular China-Africa Daily Brief newsletter delivered to your inbox by 6am Washington time M-F Try it free for 30-days and see if you like it. Subscriptions start at just $7 a month for students and teachers and $15 a month for everyone else. Subscribe here: www.chinaafricaproject.com/subscribe See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Release date

Lydbog: 4. juni 2021