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A billboard advertising Huawei’s Harmony OS at the Smart China Expo in Chongqing, Sept. 4, 2023. Photo: Bloomberg
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Huawei secures JD.com as HarmonyOS partner as home-grown software emerges as alternative for Apple iOS, Android in China

  • JD.com will build an app for HarmonyOS Next, based on the intelligence innovations in the next iteration of Huawei’s mobile platform
  • Huawei is pushing for wider adoption of HarmonyOS, which is projected to surpass Apple’s iOS in China this year
Huawei
Iris Deng
Iris Dengin Shenzhen
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Huawei Technologies has secured another partner to promote use of HarmonyOS, as the US-sanctioned telecommunications equipment giant continues to take on Google’s Android and Apple’s iOS in the Chinese market.

Chinese e-commerce giant JD.com will build an app for HarmonyOS Next, based on the intelligence innovations in the next iteration of Huawei’s mobile platform and its ability to support transitions between multiple scenarios, Richard Yu Chengdong, chief executive of Huawei’s consumer business group, said on Wednesday.

Calling JD.com “a heavyweight partner”, Yu said the partnership marks a new milestone for HarmonyOS in a post on social media platform Weibo.

Joining with a growing number of Chinese internet companies, Huawei is pushing for wider adoption of its home-grown HarmonyOS, which is projected to surpass Apple’s iOS as the second-biggest operating system in China this year, according to Canadian research firm TechInsights.

While Google’s Android and Apple’s iOS will continue to dominate the global smartphone operating system sector, Huawei’s self-developed HarmonyOS will take some ground from both US giants in China, driven by the firm’s smartphone comeback with the Mate 60 series, according to TechInsights.

The self-developed HarmonyOS was launched as an Android alternative in August 2019, three months after the US government added Huawei to its Entity List. Under this trade blacklist, the company is barred from buying software, chips and other US-origin technologies from suppliers without Washington’s approval.

HarmonyOS is also projected to reach a milestone in 2024 with the launch of HarmonyOS Next, which will not support Android-based apps.

A developer preview of HarmonyOS Next is expected to be launched in the first quarter of 2024. Huawei is already working with major Chinese companies to develop native apps based on the system.

Ant Group, the fintech affiliate of South China Morning Post owner Alibaba Group Holding, said last month that it was building a new version of mobile payment app Alipay based on HarmonyOS, after Alibaba started development on a new version of DingTalk, its workplace collaboration app.
Other major Chinese internet companies – including JD.com, video gaming giant NetEase and food delivery market leader Meituan – in November started to recruit developers to build native apps for HarmonyOS.
McDonald’s China – with a network of more than 5,500 restaurants and over 200,000 employees – became one of the first multinational food companies on the mainland to adopt HarmonyOS Next.
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