Huawei has just been given hope regarding the return of Google services to its phones. This ray of hope comes from the U.S. Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross.
Ross told Bloomberg that a “Phase One” trade deal will be finalized and signed in November. Ross added that licenses “would be forthcoming very shortly”, suggesting that the trade deal is close to completion.
The U.S. Commerce Secretary added that there have been 260 applications, more than he expected. It was also added that the U.S. will approve “quite a few of them”. He did not specifically mention Huawei, though, but things seem to be improving.
Not having Google on board is the biggest issue for Huawei
Not having Google’s support has been the main issue for Huawei. The company is unable to pre-install Google’s services on its devices, thus losing all of Google’s apps, including the Play Store which contains much-needed Android applications.
At first, not having ARM’s and Google’s support were the biggest issues for Huawei, but UK-based ARM said that they will continue supporting Huawei. Thus Huawei removed one important issue from its list.
Huawei’s executives pointed out several times that the lack of Google services is the biggest issue for the company. Huawei has been developing an alternative, but that could take years to achieve.
Huawei is one of the largest smartphone manufacturers in the world, and losing the company would be a huge impact on Google and its Android operating system.
Thus Google is working hard to make sure that doesn’t happen. Google was forced to cut off support for Huawei due to issues between the U.S. and China, basically.
Unfortunately for Huawei and Google, they ended up being stuck in some political issues between the two companies, issues that will hopefully be resolved in the near future.
The longer Huawei is without Google’s services, the worse the situation will become. The global release of the Mate 30 and Mate 30 Pro flagship smartphones has been postponed due to such issues.
Huawei’s sales have been great lately, despite aforementioned issues
Huawei has actually been doing really well lately, in terms of sales. The company managed to break some records, but if it ends up being without Google services for the next year or so, that will probably change, at least outside of China.
It remains to be seen if the conclusion of the “Phase One” will impact Huawei at all, but it hopefully will. Huawei is the second-largest smartphone manufacturer in the world, and it increases pressure on Samsung and Apple. That is, of course, great for us, consumers, so this hope sage will hopefully be over soon.