Stefano Nicoletti, Head of MEF’s Sender ID Registry in the UK discusses the potential benefits to the marketplace of Huawei’s newly unveiled phone and OS – Harmony OS NEXT…

Huawei unveiled its first mobile phone with a wholly revamped operating system, entirely developed by Huawei itself – Harmony OS NEXT on its MATE 70, on November 26.

When looking at the global market for mobile operating system, one cannot fail to note how heavily concentrated it is: there are roughly 4 billion smartphones in use globally, 99% of which run either Android (and the related Google mobile services suite) or Apple iOS.

This all-American global duopoly is stifling developers and end-users. While we are not new to such scenarios—since PCs and desktops have existed, we have either used Windows or Mac OS—this is more serious. First, there are far more mobile handsets than laptops. Secondly, mobile devices are much more pervasive in our daily lives, tapping into our activities for both work and play. Thirdly, the concept of the online store is where mobile ecosystems truly impose their market power.

Recently, the EU Commission investigated Apple for its anticompetitive practices on its App Store, forcing developers to make tough choices or pay fees of up to 30% of their turnover just to be on the shelf. It’s akin to Tesco having access to the entire global population, (thus enjoying massive economies of scale), yet charging a 30% fee to bread loaf producers just for the right to be on their shelves. And, this example is still unfair because Tesco (or any other supermarket) faces logistical costs for transporting physical goods, whereas digital stores have much less of those.

Source: MEF DATA MEF members have access to these data and much more – find out more about MEF DATA

Huawei’s NEXT is expected to run on over 1 billion phones, though most of these will be in China or non-Western countries. Therefore, the much-anticipated benefits of competition may be harder to realize. Instead of fostering healthy competition between big tech and the Chinese vendor, we might see market segmentation aligned with current geopolitics, with the Western world sticking to the status quo operating systems and China adopting its own.

Still, this may be better than the current situation: it will spur some competition for access to stores, as global app developers will want to reach as many users as possible, forcing them to develop a third version of their app for NEXT.

NEXT is expected to completely diverge from its Android open-source origins, becoming a distinct OS with its own logic and algorithms. A potential barrier to adoption, especially in Western or contestable markets (such as Turkey, some regions in Eastern Europe, Latin America, and Africa), is how user data will be treated. Concerns about data being fed back to China and processed in non-transparent ways could deter users.

It’s fair to say that most of us know very little about how our Android or iOS devices track our personal usage, and we often accept terms that allow providers to “improve performance,” effectively granting blanket authorizations.

Head of MEF Sender ID Registry