Shortly after the United States blocked Huawei from purchasing U.S. tech without government approval, Google was one of the first companies to comply with the ban. Alphabet Inc. revoked Huawei’s Android license, which intensified the Chinese company’s efforts for its own Android alternative operating system and app store.
Last month, Google locked Huawei out of its Android updates, though the US Commerce Department granted the Chinese tech giant a 90 day repreviegeneral license to update existing devices, temporarily easing restrictions on Huawei’s access to US components. Huawei’s phones run on a version of Google’s Android mobile operating system.
However, Huawei is reportedly inviting Google Play Store developers to publish their apps on its own AppGallery app store.
According to XDA, Huawei is trying to get developers to help it fill up the AppGallery storefront found on Huawei’s EMUI interface by having them publish their Android apps in the AppGallery.
Although we must agree that in order to have a chance at survival on its own, Huawei will have to populate its app store with titles. The company is already reaching out to popular Android app developers with requests to publish their apps in the Huawei AppGallery. Courtesy of XDA Developers one such letter to a developer who wishes to remain anonymous reads as below:
Subject: [OFFICIAL] Invitation to join Huawei AppGallery
Cher XXX team,
– In the last 2 years, Huawei shipped over 350M phones, about half of them in western markets.
– All Huawei phones have our official AppStore “AppGallery” preloaded globally, with 270 million monthly active users.
– We realized that your great Android App XXX is not yet published in our AppGallery.
– In order to guarantee a smooth usage of your App for our users, Huawei is committed to provide you with full support, to help you publish your App into AppGallery.
– We would therefore like to invite you to join our 560k developers community for free, in our Huawei Developer portal.
Considering Huawei’s current status quo, the company is reevaluating its target to become the world’s largest smartphone vendor, a position currently held by Samsung. Huawei’s chief strategy officer said, according to a Reuters report, that Huawei would have become the largest in Q4 of 2019 but now we feel that this process may take longer.
There’s no clarity if Huawei was doing this same thing before the ban was enacted. Although, this email is notable because it lines up with a report from Bloomberg last month. Huawei has been reportedly working up its efforts with AppGallery to make it a viable alternative to the Play Store, and that report included reaching out to developers to bring more apps into the marketplace.