The US Trade Ban prevents Huawei to do business with American companies.
As a result, Huawei is not allowed to use Google services for its Android smartphones.
Now Huawei wishes for an Apple-like deal with Google.
It’s been a year since Huawei has been banned from doing business with American companies, which also includes Google. As a result, Huawei is not allowed to use Google services for its Android smartphones, something that’s very essential for Android devices to work outside China, especially Google apps.
Google has also pressed for an exception repeatedly from the US government, just like Microsoft has received for allowing the Chinese tech giant to use Windows OS in its notebooks. But for now, Huawei is simply hoping Google would publish its apps on Huawei’s very own app store.
After the US trade ban took effect, Huawei started working on its own app store and mobile services, called “AppGallery” and “Huawei Mobile Services” respectively. And quite expectedly, Google is not a part of it. There are no Google apps and it doesn’t support Google services. Yet, one Huawei executive hopes that might change.
“We hope Google services can be available through our AppGallery, just like how Google services are available through Apple’s App Store.” Eric Xu, Huawei Chairman told CNBC in mandarin.
Despite the optimism, chances of that happening in the present scenario aren’t very high. Because of the legal restrictions in place, just like Google can’t license its Play Services to Huawei, it also can’t work with Huawei to publish an app for Huawei’s AppGallery.
Also, most Google apps are heavily reliant on the Google Play Services framework, so even if Google wanted, it wouldn’t be the same as the deal it has with Apple since Google is legally allowed to work with Apple to enable its services and apps for iOS and macOS devices.
With the new P40 series of smartphones, Huawei has been able to nail the hardware, with claims of competing neck to neck with the best of Apple and Samsung in the flagship range, but it lacks the crucial Google support which weaves a thread of familiarity between all Android devices used outside China. In its latest earnings figures, Huawei revealed that the US trade ban has indeed hurt its business. Huawei's year-on-year revenue grew by 19.1% last year as compared to 25 percent in 2018 and 28 percent in 2017.
Follow Us
Digit NewsDesk
Digit News Desk writes news stories across a range of topics. Getting you news updates on the latest in the world of tech. View Full Profile
