Reports state that Huawei is currently under investigation from the United States government in connection with Iran sanction violations.

ZTE, another smartphone manufacturer based out of China, has already gone down that investigation route, and, just recently, was banned from having companies based out of the U.S. from exporting goods to them. That includes Qualcomm. And ZTE is rumored to have its Android license removed as well.

And now, with Huawei facing similar investigations, it sounds like the company is planning ahead. Or, as sources speaking with the South China Morning Post articulate, Huawei may have started planning ahead way back in 2012. That’s when the company reportedly started working on its own proprietary mobile operating system. Huawei is working on it now to prepare for a “worst case scenario”.

However, one source speaking to the publication stated that Huawei’s effort isn’t that great right now, and that third-party app support isn’t fantastic, either. Neither one of those things are that surprising, considering the work hasn’t been made public, and developers still need to devote their time to the two major leading platforms, Android and iOS. (Adipex)

Unfortunately, there is no additional information pertaining to the mobile OS itself. We don’t know how it might look, how it might differ from Android, or other pieces of important information. For what it’s worth, Huawei said it “has no plans to release its own OS in the foreseeable future”, so the company may be doing everything it can not to lose the Android license.

But it may be the only way that Huawei can go, depending on the results of the criminal investigation.