Google cut off Huawei’s access to some Android apps and services
In a surprise response to the ongoing Huawei vs Trump administration spat, Google has halted its business operations with Huawei.
Huawei is one of the leading mobile phone manufacturers in the world. The Google ‘pull out’ is effective immediately, according to a report from Reuters. The halted business streams include anything in relation to the transfer of hardware and software products except the open source ones. If the reports end up being fully rolled out, it would send shockwaves across the world and massively impact Huawei users and businesses.
Huawei was posed to overtake Samsung soon as the largest seller of Android phones in the world.
According to Reuters…
“Huawei Technologies Co Ltd will immediately lose access to updates to the Android operating system, and the next version of its smartphones outside of China will also lose access to popular applications and services including the Google Play Store and Gmail app,”
Google have responded…
“We are complying with the order and reviewing the implications,” a company spokesperson wrote in an email.
Reuters first reported the news via unnamed sources on Sunday afternoon, and The Verge followed up a couple hours later with — again, anonymously sourced — confirmation.
Last Thursday, the US Trump administration added Huawei to their trade blacklist and owing to that it will be extremely difficult for Huawei to do business with US companies. Google is one of the US companies with the highest number of consumers in the world using its open-source operating system Android.
The move will put the users of Huawei smartphones in limbo. They won’t be able to get any new Android updates, security patches and even will lose access to Google Play Store which makes a huge portion of Android phone experience. The list of smartphones includes the recently launched high-end flagships of Huawei including P30, P30 Pro, Mate 20 Pro, and the list continues.
Huawei, in just the recent quarter of 2019, shipped more than 59 million smartphones which makes a huge chunk of devices powered by Android Operating System. A source closer to the matter mentions that Google was forced to end ties with Huawei as a result of trade blacklisting of Huawei in US. Otherwise, Huawei was expected to become the biggest seller of Android-powered devices in the world beating Samsung and other Chinese smartphone manufacturers by a good margin.
Huawei will continue to have access to the licensed open source version of the Android operating system, which is available for everyone to use.
Huawei has not yet commented on the development. But in a recent interview to a Japenese publication Nikkei, Huawei’s CEO Ren had mentioned, “Huawei’s growth might slow under the U.S. restriction, but only slightly.”
The recent move by Google is going to change the power game between different smartphone manufacturers but only time will tell how Chinese smartphone companies and Chinese establishment will react and respond over this.
