Beijing, Sep 10 (IANS): Aiming to end its dependency on the Google operating system amid a trade standoff with the US, Huawei on Thursday announced to bring indigenously-built HarmonyOS to smartphones in December.

Announcing the second version of its HarmonyOS operating system at its developer conference Shenzhen, China, Huawei Consumer business CEO Richard Yu said it will first arrive on smart TVs, watches and wearables this month and on a wide range of devices later.

The company said it will make the Beta version of the HarmonyOS 2.0 SDK (software development kit) available to developers on Thursday.

A smartphone version of the SDK will follow in December 2020 and phones running HarmonyOS may enter the market early next year.

Huawei also announced the 'OpenHarmony project' which allows developers to build upon an open-source version of the OS.

HarmonyOS can now match 70-80 per cent of the performance features of Google Android operating system, a top executive of the company said earlier this week amid tightening US restrictions on the Chinese tech giant.

Yu said that if Huawei continues to face restrictions on using Google's ecosystem, HarmonyOS will gradually gain traction and it will eventually be able to replace Android, according to a report in Global Times.

Huawei, which became the largest smartphone seller in the world in the second quarter of this year according to a report from Canalys, last year officially launched HarmonyOS.

Huawei's consumer businesses faced a tough time due to inability to use Google's ecosystem in overseas markets.

The US on August 17 of this year tightened its restrictions so that Huawei cannot get access chips made with US technology.