Huawei has announced the postponement of release of its smartwatch in China to September. (Photo : www.weararena.com)
China's smartphone manufacturer Huawei has announced the postponement for the sale of its smartwatch in China until September or October due to incompatibility issues with Android Wear, Google's operating system for wearable devices, according to a report published in Tencent's tech news Web portal.
According to the report, the smartwatch adopted Google's Android Wear system, which is not as open as the Android system, forcing Huawei to replace Google services with its own services, otherwise the watch cannot be used in China.
The report said that Google has no exact timetable for returning the product to the Chinese market.
Huawei did not disclose the sales date and prices of the Huawei Watch when it was unveiled at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona earlier this year. The report said that China was not included in the first group of regions where the watch would be released.
He Gang, head of Huawei's smartphone division, said that the smartwatch would be available in the Chinese market in September at the earliest, adding that the company is trying to resolve the issue and optimizing services for the local market.
Google Android system's market share has grown to more than 80 percent, resulting from the rapid growth of smartphones, but the market share of the original Android system has been declining, the report said.
Android 5.0 has only 3.3 percent of the market share, while the 4.4 version, released in 2013, accounts for 40.9 percent of the market. On the other hand, more than half of the total market are captured by older versions.
Market analysts said that the reason behind this is that smartphone makers prefer a customized strategy so they can develop their user interface as well as add other features to distinguish them from one another.
