There have long been rumors in the technology space about the collaboration of the three largest Chinese players in the Android device market – Xiaomi, BBK Group (the parent company of Oppo, Vivo and OnePlus) and Huawei — with the aim of launching an alternative to Android without any Google services.
This rather bold step will redefine the smartphone market we are used to, and if you believe the rumors, Xiaomi is paving the way for a gradual departure from the Google ecosystem in the upcoming HyperOS 3, moving towards a completely independent system.
Table of contents
The precedent with Huawei
The experience of the ban by the United States since 2019 has proved to be very difficult for Huawei, but instructive. With the ban on using Google Mobile Services (GMS), Huawei accelerated work on its own HarmonyOS system with a proprietary set of Huawei Mobile Services (HMS) services. As a result, we have the following:
- She was forced to leave Google services in May 2019.
- Created HMS as an alternative to Google services
- The AppGallery App Store has replaced the Play Store
- HarmonyOS has been released to minimize dependence on Android
- HarmonyOS NEXT has been released without Android components
Despite significant difficulties at the initial stage, Huawei quickly managed to create a stable ecosystem, especially in China, where Google’s services were already severely limited.
Is this realistic for Xiaomi?
As the world’s second largest Android smartphone brand, Xiaomi would be very risky to abandon Android and Google services. The company has built its global brand by delivering devices with multiple features and full support at reasonable prices.
Xiaomi’s abandonment of the Android core and Google services could potentially:
- Alienate a huge number of users outside of China
- Reduce the availability of applications in global markets
- Require huge investments in alternative solutions
- Lead to significant market share losses
A potential strategy
In fact, Xiaomi is unlikely to plan a complete break with Google, although its proprietary HyperOS software platform is actually slowly moving away from pure Android.:
- Priority is given to improving Xiaomi’s internal ecosystem services
- Gradual reduction of dependence on Google services
- Regional versions of devices with varying degrees of integration with Google are being developed.
- Incentives are created for developers in their own application market.
However, Xiaomi has not taken any drastic steps towards completely abandoning the Android and GMS operating systems, and it is unlikely that the manufacturer will do this – too much is at stake.
