Even in the face of sanctions from the US, Huawei still wants to expand its international market, including its operating system (OS), HarmonyOS.
According to a report from The Register, HarmonyOS was launched in 2019, the same year the US banned Huawei equipment from accessing related applications under Google's Android. Five years later, Huawei continues to expand the native application ecosystem of HarmonyOS, actively attracting local developers to join their ranks. Now, Huawei hopes to push HarmonyOS into the international market.
Huawei rotating chairman Eric Xu stated at the Huawei Analyst Summit (HAS) that building the HarmonyOS native application ecosystem is the most critical thing for Huawei in 2024. HarmonyOS is applicable to smartphones, smart homes, and IoT products, a "full coverage."
In 2024, Huawei encourages the top 5,000 apps most frequently used and has the longest usage time by Chinese users to fully "port over" to HarmonyOS. So far, the developers behind more than 4,000 of these apps have explicitly stated that they will develop native applications for HarmonyOS, with the remaining 1,000 still in negotiation, a major undertaking. Xu stated that after all 5,000 apps are online, the ecosystem of HarmonyOS will be truly complete and become the third largest OS after Google's Android and Apple iOS.
Analysis by Counterpoint Research showed that the launch of the Mate 60 Pro has accelerated the growth of HarmonyOS. In the fourth quarter of 2023, HarmonyOS had a global market share of 4%, and a market share of 16% in China, making a strong case that it's the third-largest mobile operating system.
Xu further stated that HarmonyOS will first "establish itself in the Chinese market" and then gradually promote it to individual countries and eventually to the global market. However, Huawei also believes that the US will continue to curb Chinese technological development and the level of restriction will continue to escalate.
In August 2023, Huawei returned to the high-end market in China with the Mate 60 Pro series, equipped with its self-developed Kirin chips. Many research institutions believe that Huawei has undoubtedly put pressure on Apple, eroding the iPhone's market share. After that, Huawei continued to capitalize on its success, renaming its flagship camera phone series to the Pura series, which is also equipped with Kirin series chips.
