Chinese tech giant Huawei will launch its first smartphone equipped with a fully indigenous operating system on Tuesday, a key test in the company’s battle to challenge the dominance of Western cars.

Apple’s iOS and Google’s Android are currently used in the vast majority of mobile phones, but Huawei is trying to change that with its latest Mate 70 devices, which run on the company’s HarmonyOS Next.

The launch caps a major turnaround in the fortunes of Huawei, which has seen its wings clipped by crippling US sanctions in recent years but has since bounced back with rising sales.

“The search for a viable, highly scalable mobile operating system without Western company control has been a long-standing one in China,” Paul Triolo, China partner and director of technology policy at consultancy Albright, told AFP Stonebridge Group.

But the new smartphone – also powered by an advanced domestically produced chip – shows that Chinese tech firms can “persevere”, he said.

The Mate 70 is set to be unveiled at a company launch event on Tuesday afternoon at its headquarters in Shenzhen.

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More than three million have been pre-ordered, according to Huawei’s online shopping platform, though they don’t need to be purchased.

The stakes are high—unlike a previous iteration based on Android’s open-source code, HarmonyOS Next requires a complete retooling of all the apps on the smartphones it powers.

“HarmonyOS Next is the first home-grown operating system, a milestone for China to shed its dependence on Western technologies for performance-enhancing software,” Natixis senior economist Gary Ng told AFP.

But, “while Chinese firms may be willing to allocate resources to contribute to Huawei’s ecosystem, there are challenges as to whether HarmonyOS Next can offer the same number of apps and features to global consumers,” Ng said.

“Great Expectations”

Huawei has been at the center of an intense technology rivalry between Beijing and Washington, with US officials warning that its equipment could be used to spy on behalf of Chinese authorities — charges it denies.

Since 2019, US sanctions have cut off Huawei from global supply chains for US-made technology and components, a move that initially affected its smartphone production.

That fight is only set to intensify under US President-elect Donald Trump, who has promised huge tariffs on Chinese imports in response to what he says are Beijing’s unfair trade practices.

“Rather than Huawei inspiring the tech industry as a whole, it is the confidence trend of the Chinese tech industry that has made Huawei’s progress possible,” Toby Zhu, senior analyst at technology research firm Canalys, told AFP.

The success of Huawei’s new generation of smartphone products will be a key indicator of whether this drive has worked, Zhu said.

“This generation of products cannot afford to miss the mark because everyone has high expectations for them,” he added.

Huawei was once China’s largest domestic smartphone maker before becoming embroiled in a technology war between Washington and Beijing.

The company shipped more than 10.8 million smartphone units in the third quarter — capturing just 16 percent of the Chinese market, according to a recent Canalys report.

And it’s unclear whether overseas developers will be willing to spend the money to build an entirely new version of their apps for the latest smartphones, Rich Bishop, co-founder and CEO of AppInChina, a international software publisher from China.

A third-party agency in China quoted a price of two million yuan ($371,350) to adapt a foreign app for HarmonyOS Next, he said.

To convince them, “Huawei needs to continuously improve the software, provide better developer support and convince the developer community that it is committed to the long-term development of the Harmony ecosystem,” Triolo said. AFP