Everyone and their dog has heard about the US Trade Ban that was forced upon Huawei and American-based companies. Huawei’s future phones will not have support from Google based apps such as Gmail, YouTube and Google Maps. All three are apps that many people have come to use on a daily basis. Google has confirmed that they are unable to licence its software to new Huawei flagship devices.
On the other hand, Huawei devices that already exist will continue to get access to Google-made apps. These current phones include the Huawei P30 and P30 Pro. These phones are also scheduled to get the next version of Android. This version as codenamed Android Q earlier but was then changed to Android 10.
What has Huawei said about the US ban?
A Huawei spokesperson said: “Huawei 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.”
“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,” it added.
“All devices continue to be covered by our manufacturer’s warranty and will receive full service support accordingly.”
Huawei had also announced their replacement OS for Android – the Harmony OS. Although they will struggle to catch up on the level of development that Google is at. Google has poured 10+ years into their OS. They’ve had the time to fill in many, many issues that Huawei may face when developing their own new OS.
Not only that issue, Huawei will have issues convincing developers to create and support a new app. An app that is just for Huawei smartphone users.
How has the Trade Ban Affected Huawei?
The trade ban has affected the company quite a bit. Near the start of the year, Huawei overtook Apple and becoming the second biggest smartphone distributor. However, more recently, Bloomberg have said that the company have been shedding “a 40% to 60% drop in international smartphone shipments,” with “sales and marketing managers internally charting a drop in volumes of anywhere between 40 million to 60 million smartphones this year.” A massive drop to say the least.
This may be proved to be true as Huawei’s Chief Strategy Officer had said that Huawei had put their goal of becoming the world’s number one smartphone manufacturer to bay – for now at least.
Now that Huawei is slowly doing less well without the support from Google, open space needs to be filled. Possibly by other companies such as Apple or even Samsung with their new devices that will come out soon.
