China's Huawei claims new smartphone will completely break away from Android

China's Huawei said on November 26 that it has launched a new phone - Mate 70 - that will run on an in-house operating system, setting in motion the country's shift away from US-based Google Android platform completely.

The phone promises to set China free from US high-end chip restrictions, running on a 5G chip and a made-in-China operating system.

Previous phones of the Mate series featured advanced chips manufactured by China's SMIC, showcasing its rising capabilities in semiconductor despite US export controls. Some variants of Mate 70 will use Huawei’s Kirin 9100 chipset by Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corp (SMIC), however production challenges may mean only higher end models could feature these made-in-China chipsets, Reuters reported quoting a source familiar with the development. Bloomberg News too said that Huawei could use in-house Kirin chip for, though less powerful that than Qualcomm and MediaTek's top-end offerings.

Richard Yu, chairman of Huawei's consumer business group said during an event that the phone has an improved processor and runs on in-house HarmonyOS Next operating system, together boosting performance by 40% compared to previous models. The latest phone in the Mate series is the first significant commercial rollout of the HarmonyOS NEXT. Previous versions of the phone had maintained Android compatibility, however, the HarmonyOS NEXT platform - which will be available to the public this year - completely breaks away from Android.