National Business Wire (Dec 7) -- The operator of McDonald's restaurants in China announced on Wednesday that it has entered into a partnership agreement with Huawei to start the development of a native HarmonyOS app.

The fast food chain announced that the McDonald's China App will launch the development of an HarmonyOS native app based on HarmonyOS NEXT.

The cooperation means that McDonald's China, which has more than 5,500 restaurants in the Chinese market, more than 200,000 employees, and serves more than one billion customers annually, has officially become one of the first large multinational restaurant chains to start the development of HarmonyOS native apps.

In September, Richard Yu Chengdong, CEO of Huawei Terminal Business Group, introduced that the HarmonyOS NEXT developer preview will no longer be compatible with Android applications.

As a result, Chinese tech companies such as Meituan, Qunar.com, Sina, Ant Group, Xiaohongshu, Bilibili and others have already kicked off the development of HarmonyOS native apps.

McDonald's has been expanding its footprint in China over the past few years.

In late November, McDonald's Corp. announced that it had agreed to acquire investment firm Carlyle Group's minority ownership stake in a strategic partnership for McDonald's business in mainland China, Hong Kong and Macau.

The deal, which is subject to relevant regulatory approvals, is due to close in the first quarter of 2024, according to a statement.

Upon completion of the transaction, CITIC Capital-dominated CITIC Consortium will maintain its controlling position, continuing to hold a 52% stake, while McDonald's will increase its stake from 20% to 48% as a minority shareholder.

McDonald's Chief Executive Officer Chris Kempczinski said in an interview Wednesday that the company plans to increase the number of restaurants in China from 6,000 to 10,000 by 2028.