Huawei announced the public rollout of HarmonyOS Next, the first version of its operating system to fully shed Android compatibility, as third-party data placed HarmonyOS ahead of iOS on the mainland.
The launch coincided with the unveiling of the Mate XT trifold smartphone, the company's most ambitious consumer hardware showcase since the partial easing of US sanctions on its smartphone business.
HarmonyOS Next requires native applications, prompting major Chinese internet platforms — including Alibaba's Taobao and Tencent's WeChat — to commit substantial development resources to dedicated builds.
The system's rise has reignited debate over the longer-term direction of mobile computing in China, with renewed attention to a domestic ecosystem decoupled from Google's Android open-source project.