Huawei's Hongmeng operating system will be a 60% faster than Android.

The "operating system HongmengHuawei's "60%," as it is called in China, is said to be a faster 60% than Android.

That's the latest from Chinese vendors Vivo and OPPO, who have tested the new Android alternative. Presumably, both vendors intend to use Huawei's "Hongmeng OS" in some of their upcoming devices.

Now, the claim that Hongmeng is "60% faster" than Android can be attributed to marketing in some sense. The reason relates to the fact that few know what this means, other than mobile OS speed that could leave Android in the dust.

To be honest, though, what does this look like? Do apps open faster on Hongmeng than on Android? Does the task manager work better on Hongmeng than on Android? Do apps stay longer in the task manager without updating on Hongmeng than on Android?

Does Hongmeng reboot faster than Android, and how is speed reflected in performance here? OPPO and Vivo may be testing Huawei's new OS, but we don't know the specifics of that test. The 60% is just a number until we see more details on how Hongmeng is superior to Android.

Huawei's Hongmeng operating system will be a 60% faster than Android.

But there is a hint regarding the hype surrounding the "60% faster" statistic: namely, that Hongmeng is preparing to launch on Huawei phones this October, with only entry-level and mid-range phones installing the new OS.

Tianfeng International analyst Guo Mingxi says Huawei's Hongmeng OS (called ARK OS in its trademark filings outside China, or OAK OS) is not ready for the needs of high-end smartphone users. Huawei will put the new OS on its most affordable phones first, and then bring it to the high-end Mate series when the time is right.

What emerges from the evidence, then, is that Huawei's Hongmeng OS is nothing more than an entry-level OS at this point. Since Hongmeng will work only for entry-level and mid-range devices, it can be assumed that perhaps Hongmeng does not have many applications to work with, which may explain why it is faster than Android.

It's not hard to conceive of the Android Open Source Project (AOSP), Android barebones open to all vendors, being faster than Google's Android, although Google's Android offers an experience that makes AOSP barebones and skeletal in comparison. AOSP may be faster, but its barebones nature is not as appealing.

On another note, analysts have been worried about Huawei's Q4 2019 earnings and sales this year. Mingxi says it is possible that Huawei will still sell 215-225 million smartphones by the end of the year, a positive forecast amid all the political and technical uncertainty facing the Chinese OEM these days.

"Hongmeng", as Huawei's operating system is dubbed in China, means "primordial world". It refers to the initial ingredients of existence, in this case, for Huawei's new mobile operating system.

At this point, Huawei is only putting it in lower-tier smartphones, although the company will have no choice but to bring it to high-end smartphones, tablets, smartwatches and even laptops at some point in the future.

None of the technology companies referred to provided comments.

The key to survival in the mobile space is to become self-sufficient. Any OEM that relies solely on Android for profit is relying on a proverbial leg that could break at any moment.

Aside from the need to survive, Android is not a perfect operating system, for all the good that can be said about it. Android has a battery problem, which explains Google's ongoing efforts to pour battery performance. Sure, battery life can always improve (it will never be perfect), but Google constantly obsesses over it. Whatever Google has in mind for the future, Android is not good enough and Fuchsia is ideal.

HUAWEI TAKES ACTION

While Huawei will only use Hongmeng on low-end phones for now, it may be considering Sailfish for high-end devices. Recently, Huawei has been emailing Google Play developers asking them to develop apps for its AppGallery app store.

The Global Times led its story with the claim that the new OS will be "60% faster than Android," repeating a claim made by the head of Huawei's smartphone business, Richard Yu. The safest bet on this claim at this point, however, is PR.