Huawei suffered a massive blow to its business, as Google has reportedly suspended most of its partnerships with the Chinese smartphone maker for its future products.
The Department of Commerce recently added Huawei to its “Entity List,” prohibiting the company from acquiring parts and components from U.S. companies without the approval of the U.S. government, which filed criminal charges against the Chinese telecommunications giant in January. Officials told Reuters that the decision will make it difficult, if not impossible, for Huawei to sell some products due to its reliance on U.S. suppliers.
A few days later Reuters, citing sources familiar with the matter, reported that Google is cutting off most of its business with Huawei. The Chinese company will instantly lose access to updates for the Android mobile operating system, which powers its smartphones. In addition, its future Android devices will not be able to offer services such as the Google Play Store and apps such as Gmail, Chrome, and YouTube. It appears that current Huawei smartphones will not be immediately affected though, with Google’s apps and services to continue working on the devices for now.
The details on which services will be affected are still being discussed internally at Google, according to Reuters. Huawei will still be able to use the Android Open Source Project, the public version of Android, but without access to Google’s proprietary apps and services, staying on Android will not make much sense.
Huawei was said to be working on an alternate mobile operating system in a South China Morning Post report last year, as there were concerns that the company would lose its Android license from Google, though it may also be looking to reduce its reliance on other companies. The plan was dubbed as a “worst-case scenario,” but it appears that Huawei will have no choice but to proceed with it in the near future.
The reportedly severed partnership between Huawei and Google is very unfortunate, as the Chinese manufacturer has been releasing topnotch smartphones such as the P30 Pro, the Mate 20, and the Mate 20 Pro. It remains to be seen if the company will be able to bounce back from this challenge, but fans in the U.S. should not get their hopes up.
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