China Unicom has launched their first two “Wophone” handsets with the company’s “Wophone” operation system in Shanghai yesterday.

The “Wophone” operation system is a linux-based open platform. Yingtao Yu, China Unicom’s general sales manager said the operation system was developed completely by the company and it is good for their information security.

Yu said that developing their own operation system has cost China Unicom lots of money. Google and Microsoft must agree with them.

The first two “Wophone” suppliers are Envada and Tianyu. China Unicom has announced cooperation with ZTE, Huawei, Tianyu and TCL for the next four “Wophone” handsets, and the “Wophone” apps platform will be online soon.

The new offering, which, no doubt, brings some really tough challenges for the oPhone brand of the rival China Mobile, is believed to be coming with greater self-sufficiency and hence may eventually make a far-reaching impact on the global smartphone market. Baidu, Tencent and Alibaba all have their own operation system and it is difficult to judge them from the perspective of market acceptance.