This end of month, Huawei will show off the P40 phones, devices that have always been about camera innovations. But with Google’s services and Play Store out of the picture, many are wondering if Huawei’s phones are still worth it. Should you sacrifice software and apps – the essence of a smartphone – for better camera? Will this trade work?
The answer is too scary for Huawei to consider. So, the company has been working on their own app store for the past year. The App Gallery, part of Huawei Mobile Services, is their reply to Play Store.But competing with millions of apps from a reliable, strong app store that is on billions of devices today seems a fool’s errand. Then again, if there’s anyone that can face off with Google, besides Apple, it’s probably Huawei.
Huawei has invested 15 billion dollars in R&D last year and watched their sales go up 18%. They’ve managed to gather 45000 apps in an app store that was almost built overnight – at least when you compare to Android’s history.
After the trade ban, Huawei picked itself up and dust itself off, determined to prove everyone they’re not gonna crumble. They may have been dumped but they’re not licking their wounds, waiting for the US regulators to change their mind. Or for Google to fight for them. 3000 engineers are working with developers for HMS, Huawei Mobile Services.
They’ve replaced Google News with Squid, Google Assistant with Huawei Assistant. They made a deal with TomTom to help them out replace Maps in the next phones. So P40 will offer those navigation services.
It’s going to be an uphill climb but Huawei appears committed to this ecosystem of theirs. They’re already proud of having 400 million active users aboard. Besides dumping money in their own ecosystem, the company is busy winning allies. They’ve convinced Xiaomi, Oppo and Vivo to form the GDSA, which is the Global Developer Service Alliance. What’s the idea behind it? A platform where devs outside China can upload their apps onto all of these smartphone makers’ app stores in the same time.
When that happens though, Huawei may have the support it needs to grow their store faster, despite the US ban. The irony is, now, Google wants back in!
More, in the video above!
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