HarmonyOS is Huawei’s proprietary operating system which it launched in 2019, when U.S. technology restrictions cut it off from Google support for the Android operating system it used in smartphones.
The company’s Ascend artificial intelligence infrastructure – the most powerful from a Chinese company – was now the second most popular after Nvidia, which dominates the market for AI chips, Yu added.
Operating systems and other software has been dominated by Europe and the United States for a long time, although the era of internet of things has given Huawei an opportunity to overtake them, he said.
Huawei’s smartphone business has gone through a renaissance since the Mate 60 launched last year with a improved China-made chip. Harmony-equipped smartphone sales have risen 68% in the first five months of the year, Yu said.
In the first quarter of 2024, Huawei’s HarmonyOS surpassed Apple’s iOS to become the second best-selling mobile operating system in China behind Android with a 17% market share, research firm Counterpoint said.
(Reporting by David Kirton; Editing by Anne Marie Roantree and Christopher Cushing and Miral Fahmy)
