HarmonyOS 7: Huawei Outshines Apple in China with AI

⚡

Key Takeaways

1Huawei has launched HarmonyOS 7, filling the gap left by the absence of Siri in China, with an "intent-as-service" model.

2Huawei's AI assistant Xiaoyi controls over 2,100 system capabilities and 2,000 third-party AI agents.

3HarmonyOS 7 has surpassed iOS in China with a 19% market share, compared to 16% for Apple and 65% for Android.

💡Why it matters — Huawei is strengthening its position in China with HarmonyOS 7, taking advantage of Apple's restrictions on AI.

Huawei Fills the Void Left by Apple in China

Four days after Apple announced that Siri would not be available in China, Huawei unveiled HarmonyOS 7 in Dongguan, claiming that this system marks the beginning of a new era for intelligent agents. This launch allows Huawei to fill the gap left by Apple with an architecture specifically designed for artificial intelligence.

Innovations in HarmonyOS 7

The main change introduced by HarmonyOS 7 is the HarmonyOS Intelligent Agent Framework 2.0. This framework restructures the operating system around an "intent-as-service" model, simplifying interactions by compressing multiple app navigations into a single natural language command.

At the heart of this innovation is Xiaoyi, Huawei's AI assistant, which has been transformed from a simple voice tool into a system-level intelligence agent. Xiaoyi is now capable of controlling over 2,100 system-level capabilities and coordinating more than 2,000 third-party AI agents developed within Huawei's ecosystem.

Richard Yu, president of Huawei's Consumer Business Group, described this advancement as a generational turning point. Since the birth of HarmonyOS in 2019, leading up to the anticipated era of agents in 2026, Huawei continues to strengthen its platform.

Technical Performance

The system is based on openPangu 2.0, an updated foundational model with 505 billion parameters for its Pro version and 92 billion for the Flash variant. These models support context windows of 512K. On-device models of 30 billion parameters are expected on Kirin chips by fall 2026. HarmonyOS 7 also promises a performance improvement of over 15% compared to its previous version, according to Huawei's internal benchmarks.

The task execution rate claimed by Huawei exceeds 90%, although this figure has not been independently verified.

Strengthened Position in the Chinese Market

Data shared during HDC 2026 shows that HarmonyOS has already taken a significant place in the market. In the first quarter of 2026, HarmonyOS held 19% of the smartphone operating system market in China, surpassing iOS, which held 16%, while Android remained dominant with 65%. HarmonyOS first surpassed iOS in China in the second quarter of 2025, according to Counterpoint Research.

This progress is crucial as China is a market where Apple cannot currently fully leverage its AI capabilities, unlike Huawei, which has optimized its system for this market. Xiaoyi, Huawei's AI assistant, integrates with partners like Ctrip for travel planning and Ant Medical for health data analysis, services that Apple's architecture cannot currently match.

Upcoming Challenges

HarmonyOS 7 is currently in beta for developers, with a stable release expected this fall. Although the platform boasts over 400,000 applications and services, it still falls short of Apple's App Store in terms of volume.

Huawei aims to make HarmonyOS international, but this remains a future goal. Furthermore, HarmonyOS 7 adopts a Liquid Glass aesthetic similar to iOS 26 and Samsung's One UI 9, showing visual convergence despite architectural and regulatory divergences.

HarmonyOS was born from U.S. sanctions that forced Huawei to develop its own operating system after losing access to Android in 2019. As of January 2026, over 90% of Huawei devices were running a fully internally developed version, giving Huawei a structural advantage in a market where Apple is limited by regulations.