Huawei will be releasing their next flagship smartphone without there being Google’s popular applications installed on them, such as Google Maps and YouTube.
Google confirmed that because of the United States’ ban on sales to Huawei, the Chinese smartphone giant did not approve of Google having its applications licensed on the smartphone.
Apart from this, there is also a chance that the next Huawei smartphone will not have access to the Google Play app store, possibly leaving its customers without having any sort of access to other popular apps, leaving many analysts to say that Huawei will find it hard to sell smartphones without Google’s popular apps.
Back in May, the United States government restricted American companies from selling any sort of products and services to Huawei due to national security concerns, apart from some exceptions. Huawei has since denied that there are any national security concerns associated with them.
However, despite Trump stating that some exceptions will be allowed, United States officials have not granted any licenses to trade with Huawei as of yet, even though there have been more than 130 requests to do so sent to the officials.
Whilst the Android operating system is an open-source software, thus being available for any manufacturer, companies still need to establish an agreement with Google in order to be able to include its popular apps, such as Maps, Play Store and YouTube.
Huawei released a statement saying it “will continue to use the Android OS and ecosystem if the US government allows us to do so. Otherwise, we will continue to develop our own operating system and ecosystem.”
With there being growing concerns over the company’s relationship with Android, Huawei has set up a website called Huawei Answers, fully dedicated to answering consumer concerns.
On the website, Huawei stated that “Anyone who has already bought, or is about to buy a Huawei smartphone, can continue to access the world of apps as they have always done. All devices continue to be covered by our manufacturer’s warranty and will receive full service support accordingly.”
Huawei are set to launch their first flagship smartphone ever since the United States restrictions that were applied back in May, by releasing the Mate 30 Pro.
Whilst the phone comes with two 40MP cameras and an 8MP one, providing incredible photos, several analysts are predicting that launching without there being support for Google apps will have a major impact on sales.
With plenty of consumers expecting to have access to every major app, especially ones that they are used to, such as Maps and YouTube, consumers will be reluctant to buy the phone from the China-based company.
Apart from that, Huawei will also need to find a way to provide consumers access to other popular applications with the loss of Google Play Store, with plenty of consumers wanting access to apps such as Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.
Whilst it is possible to create such Android-powered devices without having Google access, with Amazon doing so through its Fire tablets, plenty of customers will not want to buy a high-end smartphone for around €800-€1000 without having access to everything, especially to the world’s most popular apps.
Huawei has also started working on its own operating system which it will use as a back-up plan, Harmony OS.