On January 18, Huawei will hold the "Hongmeng Ecological Thousand Sails Sailing Ceremony" in Shenzhen, and set up sub-venues in 8 major cities of Beijing, Shanghai, Hangzhou, Nanjing, Chengdu, Xiamen, Wuhan and Changsha to officially open a new chapter of Hongmeng’s advancement.
Since the release of the first generation of operating system in 2019, Hongmeng has been running all the way. In August 2023, Huawei announced that Hongmeng ecological equipment has reached 700 million units, Hongmeng base code has exceeded 100 million lines, and the number of developers has exceeded 2.20 million. According to third-party agency Counterpoint data, as of the end of the third quarter of 2023, HarmonyOS’s market share in China’s smartphone operating system has increased to 13%. In just four years, HarmonyOS has grown to second only to Android,iOS the third largest operating system in the world.
In the opinion of Gong Ti, president of Huawei’s end point BG software department, a mature operating system needs to have a solid base, a prosperous ecology, and the ultimate experience, all of which are indispensable. "The three major battles of Hongmeng have completed the base, experienced two, and one battle is the ecology. If the ecology is successful, Hongmeng will become."
Now, the horn of the ecological war is about to be sounded in full swing. Analysts believe that the upcoming HarmonyOS NEXT and its native applications will open a new era for the Hongmeng operating system in all scenarios. Hongmeng industry chain partners – operating system partners, application partners, hardware integration partners, etc., will usher in new traffic, new business opportunities, and new futures.
Hongmeng native ecology officially set sail
"HarmonyOS NEXT", as the name suggests, it represents the next stage of Hongmeng operating system, and the biggest difference between HarmonyOS and the current HarmonyOS running on Huawei mobile phones is that the HarmonyOS NEXT system base is fully self-developed, removing the traditional Linux kernel and AOSP code, only support Hongmeng kernel and Hongmeng system applications, reducing redundant code by 40%.
In the initial stage, in order not to affect users’ use, Huawei Hongmeng operating system adopts a dual architecture mode, which supports both Hongmeng architecture and Android architecture. Therefore, even if Huawei mobile phone users upgrade the Hongmeng system, the Android applications in it can still be installed and used normally.
In September 2023, Huawei announced that the HarmonyOS NEXT preview was open to developers from partner companies, marking the first step towards "pure-blood Hongmeng".
Since then, the news that the leading application vendors have launched the development of Hongmeng native applications has continued to come.
Especially in the past two months, from Alipay, Xiaohongshu, Meituan, toSina, 360, and then to,, UnionPay,More than 100 leading companies have joined hands with Huawei in a high-profile official announcement to launch the development of Hongmeng native applications and embrace the Hongmeng native ecology.
"Since the full launch of Hongmeng’s native application in September 2023, the development of Hongmeng’s ecosystem has been on a roll and has received continuous attention from the whole society. More and more partners have accelerated their embrace of Hongmeng, and more and more innovative talents have walked side by side with Hongmeng. The HarmonyOS NEXT ecological map has basically taken shape, and our future is becoming clearer," Huawei said.
At the beginning of 2024, many Huawei executives have spoken one after another to "accelerate the development of mobile applications," and the "Hongmeng Ecological Thousand Sails Launching Ceremony" held on January 18 will fully sound the horn of Hongmeng’s advancement from HarmonyOS to HarmonyOS NEXT, which is no longer compatible with Android applications.
"At that time, we will join hands with leading application partners in various vertical fields, top universities, talent training institutions, authoritative media, etc., to witness the development of Hongmeng ecologyTogether, we will open up new traffic, new business opportunities and a new future, "Huawei wrote in the event invitation letter.
Huawei’s 1,000-person team accelerates the transformation of mobile applications
It is understood that as of the end of December 2023, more than 400 major app manufacturers have launched the development of Hongmeng native applications.
At present, the "Hongmeng Pioneer" area of Huawei’s app store has been launched, and the area shows more than 100 apps that have taken the lead in embracing the Hongmeng ecosystem, covering travel, social networking, office,Shopping, life,18 fields, including news and information.
It is understood that in order to speed up the mobile application Hongmeng, Huawei invested thousands of teams to help leading companies develop Hongmeng native applications. The first stage goal is to achieve the launch of the top 5000 mobile app "Hongmeng version", which can be used on mobile end points upgraded with HarmonyOS NEXT.
According to Huawei’s plan, the HarmonyOS NEXT preview will be available to all developers in Quarter 1 in 2024. At that time, the development speed of Hongmeng’s native applications is expected to further accelerate.
Huawei’s goal is to break through the upgrade users of the HarmonyOS NEXT developer preview version in 2024 100 million. It is reported that mobile phones equipped with HarmonyOS NEXT are already in the pipeline, and Huawei expects that by 2024, the number of Hongmeng ecological devices will reach 800 million to 1 billion.
In the past four years, Huawei’s investment in Hongmeng ecological construction has exceeded 50 billion yuan, accounting for about 13% of its R & D investment in the same period. In the next three years, Huawei plans to invest 10 billion yuan in Hongmeng ecological partners to provide partners with resources from development to operation.
Industry observer Techinsights recently released a report predicting that from 2024, Hongmeng OS will replace iOS and become the second largest smartphone operating system in the Chinese market.
Industrial chain welcome opportunities
It is said that 2024 will become the first year of the original Hongmeng. The full launch of the original application of Hongmeng will create the original ecology of Hongmeng, and the entire industrial chain of Hongmeng is expected to benefit.
At present, the entire application development market has shown a trend of the red ocean. On the one hand, the user growth dividend has declined, and both the number of users and the average daily usage time of users have approached the growth ceiling. The downward trend of application active level is obvious. At the same time, the entire mobile Internet application also presents an increasingly prominent "giant pattern". A large number of apps and many developers need an opportunity to redistribute traffic.
"All new features such as the full-scenario’correlation ‘ability between the Hongmeng system and the ecosystem may bring traffic reshuffle and open a new track." Some app developers said.
It is believed that in the early stage of the launch of the native HarmonyOS NEXT system, software outsourcers will mainly benefit. After the launch of the official version of HarmonyOS NEXT OS, Hongmeng application developers are expected to profit in various ways such as advertising and consumption scene drainage. The Hongmeng education and training market will also usher in prosperity. In the past, Java training demand is expected to shift to Hongmeng. Therefore, Hongmeng drives the change of the overall structure of IT development and application, and the market scale is larger and more sustainable.
It is believed that HarmonyOS NEXT will accelerate the arrival of the native Hongmeng era, and the improvement of the application side will escort the long-term development of Hongmeng. It is optimistic about industrial chain partners, including operating system partners, application partners, and hardware integration partners.
"Huawei has invested a lot of manpower and material resources to speed up the mobile application Hongmeng, but at present it can only cover the top enterprises. To achieve a larger-scale coverage, so that users will not feel that there are too few downloadable apps when upgrading HarmonyOS NEXT, which is inconvenient to use. It needs the assistance of software service providers and the continued efforts of a large number of Hongmeng talents." Liu Sheng, founder and general manager of Shenzhen Qianhai New Silk Road Technology Co., Ltd., said.
Currently, class A shares,,,,And Hong Kong stock listed companiesInternational has been a deep partner of Huawei in the field of Hongmeng ecology. It is not only an independent software supplier of Hongmeng Zhilian, but also a core participant in the ecological construction of open-source Hongmeng (OpenHarmony). They are actively working with Huawei to promote the cultivation of Hongmeng talents and the construction of Hongmeng ecology.
