Huawei Pay, the company’s proprietary mobile payment platform that’s exclusive for use only with its own lineup of devices, is reportedly set to come pre-installed on the upcoming Huawei P20 flagship once the device debuts in Europe. According to a new report by XDA-Developers, which gained access to a number of Huawei P20 Plus firmware files from FunkyHuawei, it is likely that Huawei Pay will debut in the European market alongside the upcoming launch of the next-generation Huawei flagship device in the region, though nothing is confirmed at the moment.
The firmware files reportedly contain the APK for the Huawei Pay app, which was then installed on the European version of the Huawei Mate 10 Pro, the company’s 2017 flagship device. Huawei Pay apparently worked fine with the Mate 10 Pro device, though it remains to be seen whether the app is indeed launching with the P20 in Europe. Nonetheless, that is hard to rule out otherwise, since Huawei filed for a Huawei Pay trademark in Europe in August of last year. That means Huawei could be planning to introduce its digital payment system to European countries in the future. It’s worth pointing out that Huawei Pay has previously been available in China and it was only recently when Huawei and UnionPay International signed an agreement to roll out Huawei Pay worldwide, with Russia being set to receive first the global version of the app. It is also understood that Huawei and UnionPay aim to push out the service to the Eastern European markets after Russia.
It only makes sense for Huawei to introduce its mobile payment system in Europe, where both Android Pay and Samsung Pay are already gaining traction among European countries. Huawei Pay’s potential launch on the European market would be a natural part of the competition with Google and Samsung at least. Additionally, Huawei aims to launch most of its high-end device offerings in Europe, with the region being considered by Huawei as a big market and bringing its own mobile payment solution for users there would be a logical step.