JD Finance HarmonyOS NEXT: From Zero to One – Architecture, Challenges, and Practices

Background

In June 2023 Huawei announced HarmonyOS NEXT beta, and by the fourth quarter it will be commercially available. Over 10,000 apps are on the market, and Huawei invests more than 6 billion RMB annually to encourage developers; JD Finance has 6.75 million registered developers.

JD Finance HarmonyOS Official Release

JD Finance began researching HarmonyOS NEXT in November 2023, launched a trial version in June, and released the 6.9.30 official version on September 19, leveraging native capabilities, system‑level AI, and an intent framework to understand user intents across scenarios.

Necessity of a HarmonyOS Version

Huawei phone users constitute the largest share of JD Finance’s active users (excluding iOS). The upcoming release of HarmonyOS NEXT on new devices presents both risk and opportunity, prompting the project.

Feature Scope

To limit effort, JD Finance selected 21 core modules covering roughly 90 % of the app’s functionality, totaling 180+ pages.

Overall Architecture

The app is divided into a foundational layer (network, routing, monitoring, web container, Roma cross‑platform framework) and a business layer (native pages, Roma cross‑platform pages, H5 pages).

Technical Solutions Comparison

Three options were evaluated: (1) pure HarmonyOS native implementation, (2) Roma cross‑platform with native fallback, (3) Roma with custom rendering. Option 2 was chosen as the primary path with option 3 as a long‑term research direction.

Infrastructure Component Construction

Core components such as routing, network library, encryption, image loading, web container, and Roma framework were prioritized; non‑essential components like SGM, analytics, and sharing were scheduled later. Over 30 P0‑P3 components were delivered.

Challenges

Key challenges included limited ArkTS language features, the declarative ArkUI UI paradigm, immature system APIs, new intent framework, and coordination of cross‑team dependencies.

Trial Version Release

A fast‑track trial version was shipped within two months using native ArkUI and H5, achieving the first HarmonyOS native app for JD Group.

Business‑Layer Development

Mixed development model with native, Roma, and H5 pages; H5 pages required UA adaptation and jrbridge updates for HarmonyOS support.

New HarmonyOS Features

Integration of Huawei Account login, intelligent PhotoPicker, and the intent framework enabled voice‑driven financial services.

Official Release

Final release addressed foldable‑screen adaptation and performance optimizations (UI hierarchy reduction, worker/task‑pool usage, off‑loading heavy APIs), achieving 88 % of scenes meeting Huawei’s S‑grade criteria.

Post‑Release Planning

Remaining features will be completed, and further exploration of the HarmonyOS ecosystem (meta‑services, AI, etc.) will continue.

Summary

The JD Finance HarmonyOS journey demonstrates a full rewrite of a large‑scale financial app, covering architecture design, component construction, cross‑platform strategies, performance tuning, and exploitation of new OS capabilities.