huawei

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Trade war update: Huawei is working on its own version of Play Store

It seems that Huawei has been preparing for the possibility of life without Google and its app store for a while now.

huawei

Photo: Pexels

The Android ecosystem is built around Google’s app store, and Trump’s trade ban will necessarily mean that future Huawei devices will not have access to it or any other google apps and services.

According to The Verge, Huawei has seemingly anticipated that this day may eventually come and they have been working on an app store of their own.

Huawei’s App Gallery has been shipped with its handsets for some time now, and the Chinese company has apparently been working in the background to lure app makers onto their Play Store alternative.

Huawei ban
Source: Statista

Huawei has attempted to woo app makers onto their platform with the promise of access to their Asian (mostly Chinese) market.

In addition, it seems as though Huawei has been trying to get mobile networks to help promote their app store by offering them a percentage of their app revenue.

Huawei, however, has probably, just like all of us, been caught off guard by the trade ban enacted by the US government.

Huawei
Source: Statista

While the Chinese hardware giant has done what it can to mitigate the risk of falling foul of Google, there’s only so much damage control that can be done when every US company is barred from doing business with you.

Huawei would have positioned it’s App Gallery as the nexus of eastern and western tech giving Chinese and western application developers access to markets previously closed to them.

However, they are now looking at a situation where most of the biggest apps on Google play belong to US companies that won’t be able to sign any agreements with Huawei.

Huawei
Photo: Pexels

No matter how you look at it, Huawei is going to suffer heavily under this trade ban.

While their App Gallery could have helped them in a situation where only Google was unable or unwilling to business with them, the blanket US trade ban means they’ll need to have some other tricks up their sleeves if they are to survive.