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Huawei is reportedly preparing to launch a new smartphone sub-brand called Starlight, or Xingmang in Chinese. According to tipster Digital Chat Station, the brand will sell its phones mainly online and be priced as a cost-effective option.
Per the leak, several models are already in the pipeline, including one with an active cooling fan. The phones are also rumored to use Huawei’s in-house Kirin 8-series or Kirin 9-series chips.
Huawei already has four main smartphone lines, each serving a different market. The Mate and Pura series cover the premium segment, while Nova phones target buyers interested in design and imaging, particularly through offline sales channels. The Enjoy series is the most affordable offering.
What Huawei lacks is a dedicated online mid-range line focused on performance—the space where Redmi, iQOO, and Realme compete. Starlight will serve as their counterpart, as well as a rival to Honor, which originally operated as Huawei’s budget-friendly online brand before spinning off.
Why Starlight could matter for HarmonyOS
An affordable smartphone line would give Huawei another way to bring its Kirin chips to a wider audience. Using lower-tier processors could help keep prices down, while selling more devices would expand the number of people using native HarmonyOS and give developers a larger audience for their apps.
Huawei’s software ecosystem already has a sizable user base. The number of devices running HarmonyOS 6 and HarmonyOS 7 has reportedly surpassed 90 million, while the native app catalog continues to grow. HarmonyOS is also ranked as the world’s third-largest operating system, according to the report.
If Huawei launches Starlight, the brand could help build on that momentum by bringing more affordable phones to market. A larger user base could, in turn, make the platform more attractive to developers, although the extent of that growth will depend on the phones’ pricing, availability, and eventual reception.
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