Last weekend, Huawei reported in the news that it is completely abandoning Google apps on future smartphones, even if the trade ban is lifted. That news turns out to be wrong, as Huawei still prefers Google apps, but the company is still investing heavily in a future without Google apps.
The United States still has a tough policy towards China and Chinese Huawei. Due to the trade war, Huawei is only allowed to do very limited business with American companies and is therefore unable to bring new smartphones onto the market with a Google license. Without a Google license, it is also impossible to offer apps such as the Google Play Store, Google Maps, Gmail and the like.
Huawei is therefore busy developing Huawei Mobile Services (HMS), as a replacement for all Google apps. Huawei has been using alternative apps for Google in China for years, because the search giant is not strongly represented there. It already has its own application store and collaborations with Baidu and other players in the market. With HMS, this should now also be done for the Western market. Whether Huawei will come up with its own business solution is still unclear.
Google gets a competitor thanks to the U.S. government
It was recently announced that Huawei has concluded an agreement with TomTom for the purchase of map material. So we can expect Huawei Maps as an alternative to Google Maps soon. There will undoubtedly be other apps on schedule as well.
Huawei is adapting its processes and technology so that it is no longer dependent on US companies. So that the current but also a future trade ban will have less impact on business operations.
Last weekend the message went around that Huawei wanted to go all the way without a Google license and applications, but that turned out to be wrong. Huawei says it still wants to work with Google, but if that is not possible, it wants to have an alternative. However, that doesn’t mean that that opinion can’t change if HMS is very successful in the future. Again, the Trump administration seems to have created a competitor for an American company by means of the trade ban. This time Google has to make sure that they are not defeated.
Earlier we already wrote about how Huawei developed an alternative to Intel processors in the enterprise market with its Kunpeng-chips. Huawei is a strong player in the data center world and has no intention of abandoning it.
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