Asian Tech Press (Nov 20) -- Chinese tech giant Huawei may launch an Android-incompatible version of HarmonyOS next year, Chinese media outlet Securities Times reported on Monday.

A few days ago, market sources said that the current HarmonyOS NEXT developer preview is no longer compatible with Android, and Huawei may launch a version of HarmonyOS that is not compatible with Android next year.

In this regard, an industry sources said, "Huawei does have this plan internally, that is, to launch the HarmonyOS version that is not compatible with Android next year."

"However, there is no internal notification yet, so it is not clear when exactly it will come out," the person added.

As the world's third largest smartphone operating system after Android and iOS, HarmonyOS has attracted considerable attention in the smartphone industry since its formal release in August 2019.

Huawei's official data shows that as of August this year, the number of HarmonyOS ecosystem-powered devices exceeded 700 million units, with over 2.2 million developers.

At the Huawei Developer Conference 2023 in August this year, Huawei not only released a new generation of HarmonyOS 4, but also launched the HarmonyOS NEXT developer preview.

And at Huawei's autumn product launch in September, Richard Yu Chengdong, CEO of Huawei Terminal Business Group, introduced that the HarmonyOS NEXT developer preview will no longer be compatible with Android applications, and will be open to developers in the first quarter of next year.

Earlier this month, a number of top Chinese Internet companies, including Meituan, NetEase, ByteDance and Alibaba, intensively released recruitment information for HarmonyOS-related talents.