HarmonyOS now powers over 900 million devices in China, Huawei says, as the company seeks to continue reducing its reliance on Android.
Huawei’s operating system powers more than 900 million devices in China, the company reports, and is starting to overtake other competitors. The latest version was released last week, and 30 phones from Huawei and Honor are now running HarmonyOS 4.2.
The meteoric rise of HarmonyOS has been somewhat forced. Indeed, if previous Huawei devices ran Android, the group had to find a solution in 2019 when the American government blacklisted the Chinese company, thus prohibiting in particular the American giant Google, developer of Android, from processing with Huawei, and therefore to provide it with new versions of Android for its smartphones.
In 2022, Huawei launched its own operating system, based on the open version of Android. Today, several years later, HarmonyOS is showing positive results. At its developer conference, Huawei reported that almost a billion devices are running the system in its home market. In addition, a system completely without Android is under development: HarmonyOS Next. Currently, some users can already test the beta version in China.
With HarmonyOS Next, Huawei also says it’s focusing more on its broader portfolio. Like Apple devices, Huawei’s various smartphones, tablets, TVs, printers, and other devices should be able to interact seamlessly when they all run the same proprietary operating system.
