Huawei sees HarmonyOS as third option after Android and iOS, with no launch date By Luís Henrique Costa
3 min read
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Huawei is considering a gradual move of its HarmonyOS operating system into the global smartphone market. The plan was detailed to journalists in Shenzhen, China, and the company describes it as preliminary, with no date set for launch.
Richard Yu, executive director of Huawei and chairman of the consumer business division, said the international transition will not happen right away. “We are considering gradually bringing HarmonyOS to the global market in the future. That is just our initial plan, though. We will do it slowly, step by step,” he said, in a free translation.
Five engineering pillars behind the software
Huawei organizes its software architecture updates around internal operating guidelines meant to keep the system competitive with established ecosystems. Engineering rests on five core pillars: fluidity, security, intelligence, refinement and connectivity among the brand’s devices.
HarmonyOS ranks third in the global mobile operating system ranking, behind Android and iOS. Its progress followed years of spending on research and development, which the company put at 1.8 trillion yuan between 2007 and 2025.
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Why earlier rival systems failed, according to Yu
When discussing the risks of a standalone platform, Yu recalled large projects that tried to break the dominance of traditional systems and were discontinued over the last decade. He named Windows Phone, from Microsoft, bada OS, from Samsung, and Symbian, used by Nokia in the early years of connected devices. In his view, those efforts showed how hard it is to keep a stable base of apps and technical support without a robust partner ecosystem.
Yu said building an operating system is far from simple. “There were earlier attempts by other brands, such as Microsoft’s Windows Phone, Samsung’s bada OS and Nokia’s Symbian. They did not succeed. Even though we did it many years later, we managed it. I think this is extremely hard to achieve,” he said, in a free translation.
HarmonyOS ecosystem figures in numbers
The company points to a set of consolidated figures to justify its move beyond China. Those figures sit on a software and services chain built with independent companies and developers.
- 90 million active devices connected to the platform
- 450,000 apps and services listed and available
- 11 million registered developers
- 23,000 corporate and technology innovation partners
- Target of 100 million devices by the end of 2026, according to Huawei
How US sanctions pushed Huawei off Android
Huawei sped up its own software work after US sanctions in 2019 cut its access to Google mobile services. In 2024 it launched HarmonyOS NEXT, a version that removed compatibility and ties with the open-source Android base known as AOSP.
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In China, HarmonyOS runs on phones, tablets and computers, while the international phone catalog still used the EMUI interface without Google apps. Outside China, HarmonyOS was limited to wearables such as smartwatches. To regain commercial relevance in developed markets, including Europe, Yu said Huawei will depend on telecom operators to distribute its phones on their networks. Counterpoint Research put HarmonyOS at 24% of smartphone sales in China in the second quarter of 2026, against 18% for iOS, and at 5% of global sales.
Huawei has not released a formal schedule with launch dates or the first smartphone models for Western markets. The company did say in August 2026 that it would begin pilot programs in selected countries and regions, according to Xu Zhijun, vice chairman and rotating chairman of Huawei. Those trials will come before any broader global rollout.
