Huawei has announced that its proprietary operating system, HarmonyOS, has been officially recognized as the third largest mobile OS globally, and the company forecasts that the ecosystem will reach 100 million users by the end of the current year.
At the HarmonyOS Ecosystem Conference 2026 on August 28th, Huawei's rotating chairman, Su Zhijun, presented the latest achievements. The number of native HarmonyOS applications has exceeded 100,000, and users on HarmonyOS devices have access to over 400,000 applications. As of August 20th, cumulative shipments of HarmonyOS 6 devices surpassed 80 million units. Su Zhijun noted that, based on current weekly growth rates, the ecosystem is expected to cross the 100 million user mark in the fourth quarter.
This achievement is significant as it signals the end of the 'nurturing period' for the ecosystem. Once developers see a sufficient user base to justify investments, the mechanism for application improvement and new user acquisition is expected to accelerate.
The recognition of its status occurred two days earlier. At a press conference by the State Council Affairs Office on August 26th, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology announced that HarmonyOS had officially become the third largest mobile operating system in the world. This confirmation was sought by the company since abandoning the Android-based lineup and transitioning devices back to its own platform.
Beyond the mobile segment, Huawei is actively promoting the operating system in vertical industries. The 'Huntu Plan' was introduced at the conference, led by the Global Intelligent IoT Consortium (GIIC) with Huawei's support, aiming to stimulate chip, module, OS, and device manufacturers toward broader commercial implementation across various sectors. Devices built on OpenHarmony, the open-source version, now exceed a cumulative volume of 1.35 billion units, with specialized versions being used in markets such as automotive, home appliances, metallurgy, and petrochemicals.
Su described the next phase as a test of global ambitions. He stated that Huawei aims to make HarmonyOS the 'second choice' for the entire world, and that the ecosystem must leverage its artificial intelligence advantage to lead in intelligence before entering foreign markets in partnership with the open-source community.
This success comes amid the consolidation of the Chinese smartphone market around a smaller number of operating systems, with HarmonyOS gaining ground in the domestic market competing against iOS and Android.