• Thursday, March 28, 2024
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Huawei set to launch own mobile operating system amid sanctions from Google

Huawei-office

Amid intense rift with the United States, Huawei said it will roll out its own mobile phone operating system “very quickly” if its smartphones are cut off from Google’s Android software.

Huawei currently the world’s second-largest smartphone maker is facing the prospect of being shut out of the world’s most popular smartphone operating system after being placed on a “banned entity” list.

Huawei, which last year sold 200m phones, promised its customers that their current phones would continue to work, and have access to Google’s Play Store to buy apps. These phones are certified so that Google can provide them with updates and downloads without going through Huawei

Google had announced that they will be blocking Huawei devices from accessing their services. The US government temporarily eased some of the restrictions on Huawei which means for the next three months, the company is allowed to purchase US-made goods and provide software updates to existing Huawei handsets.

What does this mean?

About a quarter of all phones sold in the UK are made by China’s Huawei and based on the Android operating system owned by Google. Globally, Huawei had nearly 19 per cent of the smartphone market in the first quarter of this year, according to Canalys, making it the second-biggest seller behind Samsung.

This move means Google is no longer going to provide technical support and collaboration for Android and Google services to Huawei. Also, Android updates only come to the open-source version a lot later than the licensed one. This is particularly concerning when it comes to security updates.

Also its future smartphones may lose access to apps including YouTube, Gmail and Maps, and to the Google Play store and to security updates. This is likely to have a severe effect on their attractiveness to consumers outside of China, where many Google apps are already banned.

 

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