As part of the U.S. sanctions on Huawei based on fabricated fear, Google has been forced to stop offering its apps to future Huawei smartphones.
Google said it's only "complying with the order" from the U.S. government and that current users of Huawei smartphones can go on enjoying Google apps.
If you are holding a Huawei smartphone now, don't worry. Google has promised to continue its service for you.
"For users of our services, Google Play and the security protections from Google Play Protect will continue to function on existing Huawei devices," a Google spokesperson told Reuters.
Huawei has also confirmed by saying in a statement that "Huawei will continue to provide security updates and after-sales services to all existing Huawei and Honor smartphone and tablet products, covering those that have been sold and that are still in stock globally."
But future Huawei devices may be out of luck.
This ban does not mean that Huawei has lost its access to Android because the system is open-source and available to everyone. It's only the Google part of the Android is about to be gone.
"Huawei has made substantial contributions to the development and growth of Android around the world," the company said in a statement.
The ban will have little to no effect on Huawei's smartphone business on the Chinese mainland since most users in China stopped using Google services after the company pulled out from the world's largest smartphone market nearly a decade ago.
But its international business may be hugely impacted as most Android users outside of China are used to Google services. Some users have taken Google for granted in Android while in fact the system can run fine, if not better, without any Google app.
Many users are invested in Google's Play Store for its apps and services. If future Huawei phones do not come with Play, users may have to buy these apps again, which sounds terrible.
But on the other side, Huawei's own replacement of Google services can also be solid, especially the new Ark Compiler that has the potential to significantly boost app performance on Huawei's own Android mod EMUI.
Huawei is the world's second largest smartphone maker after Samsung. The company's mobile services have more than 500 million users as of 2018 and monthly active users reached 262 million, according to the company's white paper released in April.
