Huawei's HarmonyOS set to top iOS as China's number two platform in 2024

Huawei’s HarmonyOS set to top iOS as China’s number two platform in 2024،

Android is the leading operating system in China, followed by iOS. But according to Technical informations (via SouthChinaMorningPost), there is going to be a major upheaval this year. Thanks to Huawei's shocking launch of the Mate 60 series last year, the first 5G phone produced by the company in three years despite US sanctions, HarmonyOS will attract both Android and iOS users in China and overtake iOS to become the second most popular platform in China. the country.

HarmonyOS was developed by Huawei after the company was placed on the US Entity List for security reasons in 2019. This prevented Huawei from working with its US supply chain, including Google. A year to the day later, US export rules were changed to prevent foundries using US technology from shipping cutting-edge chips to Huawei without a license.

Huawei Mate 60 Pro powered by Kirin 9000s 5G chipset - Huawei's HarmonyOS expected to become the second iOS platform in China in 2024

The Huawei Mate 60 Pro powered by the Kirin 9000s 5G chipset

Ahead of the release of the Mate 60 series, powered by the controversial Kirin 9000s 5G chipset, Huawei has received licenses to use 4G versions of Qualcomm's Snapdragon SoCs to power the flagship P50, Mate 50 and P60 series in 2022 and 2023. It is still unclear exactly how China's largest foundry, SMIC, was able to manufacture the 7nm Kirin 9000 without using extreme ultraviolet (EUV) lithography machines, which are banned in China.

These lithography machines are used to etch circuit patterns onto silicon wafers thinner than human hair. School bus-sized machines are needed to help small chips accommodate billions of transistors; The greater the number of transistors in a chip, the more powerful and energy efficient it is.

The next version of HarmonyOS, aptly named HarmonyOS Next, will not support any Android apps. A developer preview version of HarmonyOS Next is expected to be released in the current quarter and Huawei is already in talks with major companies in China to develop native apps for the next iteration of HarmonyOS. We could see a new version of Alibaba's mobile payments app, Alipay, for the platform, as well as its workplace collaboration app, DingTalk.

Other major Chinese companies, including e-commerce company JD.com, video game leader NetEase and food delivery company Meituan, began recruiting developers in November to write native apps for HarmonyOS. One of the first multinational companies to develop an application for HarmonyOS Next is McDonald's China, with over 5,500 units in the country, over 200,000 employees and over a billion customers served annually.

More than 700 million devices run HarmonyOS and more than 2.2 million third-party developers write apps for the platform. This data comes from Richard Yu Chengdong (known by his Americanized name Richard Yu in the United States), CEO of Huawei's consumer business.

Huawei's next flagship series is the photography-based P70 lineup, expected in the first quarter of this year.