The rapid growth of Huawei HarmonyOS 5 underscores the company’s resilience despite prolonged US restrictions. Recently, Huawei confirmed that more than 17 million devices now run its self-developed operating system. This milestone reflects both strong adoption and the company’s commitment to digital independence.
At the same time, Huawei pledged 1 billion yuan ($140.6 million) to strengthen the HarmonyOS AI ecosystem. With this investment, the company aims to fuel developer innovation, expand AI-native applications, and usher in a new phase of intelligent connectivity. Consequently, analysts see this move as a crucial step for Huawei to compete in the global software market.
Zhu Yonggang, president of Huawei’s terminal cloud services, explained that HarmonyOS is “advancing at full speed.” He added that its rapid expansion signals a collective shift in China’s tech industry, made possible through collaborative innovation. Moreover, Zhu presented an ecosystem map showing HarmonyOS adoption across smartphones, smart vehicles, smart homes, and even industrial applications.
Since launch, HarmonyOS 5 has grown by millions of new devices each month. This expansion includes Huawei’s entire product portfolio—smartphones, PCs, tablets, wearables, and smart screens—as well as partner devices. Furthermore, HarmonyOS delivers seamless AI-powered connectivity, ensuring a consistent user experience across categories.
Huawei’s foldable laptops and triple-fold smartphones illustrate these advancements. They integrate PC-like applications and productivity tools, while also enabling smoother multitasking. As a result, users experience both mobile flexibility and desktop performance.
Industry experts emphasize that HarmonyOS growth demonstrates China’s determination to challenge the dominance of Android and iOS. For example, Wang Liansheng of the China Electronics Standardization Association noted that the system’s expansion “shows Chinese tech companies’ determination to break through technical barriers.”
Importantly, HarmonyOS builds on OpenHarmony, the open-source project Huawei contributed to the OpenAtom Foundation in 2020 and 2021. Over five years, OpenHarmony has accumulated more than 130 million lines of code and 9,200 contributors. In addition, it now supports 1,300 products and over 70 industry-specific solutions across finance, education, energy, transportation, and aerospace.
Song Jia, deputy secretary-general of the China Association for Promoting UN Procurement, stressed the strategic impact. According to him, “Reaching 17 million devices is a threshold that signals rapid growth.” He further explained that HarmonyOS expansion plays a vital role in strengthening China’s digital independence and innovation capacity.
Beyond scale, Huawei claims that HarmonyOS 5 introduces a qualitative leap in AI features. For instance, AI agents and micro-services now form a central part of the system, reshaping how users access services and applications. Because of this, Huawei expects HarmonyOS to deliver more intelligent, adaptive, and connected experiences.
Nevertheless, challenges persist. Observers caution that Huawei must expand app diversity, improve profitability for developers, and achieve stronger global market penetration. Even so, Huawei’s billion-yuan investment indicates a long-term commitment to overcoming these obstacles.
Ultimately, as Song Jia remarked, “The competition among operating systems is a competition of ecosystems.” With HarmonyOS 5 already powering 17 million devices, backed by heavy investment, Huawei is positioning itself as a formidable player in the next era of intelligent operating systems.
