- Huawei ditches windows and replace it with harmonies on all future laptops
- Harmonyos shoots to a billion users as it spreads far beyond smartphones
- Harmonyos then ditches android roots and is now a fully internal Huawei operating system
Huawei’s software ambitions are expanding rapidly. What began as a survival strategy in response to US sanctions has evolved into a bold initiative to place harmonies as a dominant operating system across smartphones, tablets, TVs and soon PCs.
Now, aiming to surpass a billion users, Harmonyos is preparing for a new era with computing after Huawei lost access to Microsoft Windows licenses.
Originally revealed in 2019 after seven years of development, Harmonyos, known as Hongmeng In China, Huawei’s response to being cut off from Google’s Android ecosystem.
One billion smartphones driven by Harmonyos
The operating system first appeared on smart TVs and quickly expanded to smartphones by 2021. By the end of 2024, over 900 million units were already riding Harmonyos, with the number that expected to cross the 1 billion mark.
This quick adoption is reflected in Huawei’s mobile performance; Its smartphones recently overtook Apple in the Chinese market share and reached 19% compared to Apple’s 17%.
This growth has laid a strong foundation for Huawei to scale Harmonyos across multiple devices as it seeks to unite its ecosystem, mirroring Apple’s seamless integration between iOS, iPados and MacOS.
In March 2025, Huawei’s license expired to use Microsoft Windows. Due to ongoing US sanctions, the company cannot renew the agreement. As a result, Huawei takes another bold step by replacing Windows with Harmonyos on its future laptops.
The company has already shown a new, not named laptop running Harmonyos 5, also referred to as Harmonyos next time. Unlike previous versions, this edition is no longer based on Android and is fully developed internally. Huawei is officially expected to start the device later this month.
The new OS supports core productivity tools such as WPS Office and Enterprise Apps like DingTalk. Thousands of Harmonyos mobile apps are expected to run on the new laptops and offer users a well-known, mobil-like experience on stationary devices.
With its large ecosystem spanning smartphones and beyond, Harmonyos could soon emerge as one of the best Windows alternatives, especially in regions where access to Microsoft’s operating system is limited or prohibited.
However, if these laptops continue to use AMD or Intel chips, users may still have the opportunity to install or double-boot windows or even explore alternative Linux-Distros.
Via Tomshardware
