Can Huawei build a viable alternative to Google Play?

US government ban forces Chinese smartphone giant to explore replacements for Gmail, Google Maps, YouTube and the Google Play app store

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Can Huawei build a viable alternative to Google Play?

Published: 8:56pm, 22 May 2019Updated: 9:05am, 20 Sep 2019

This article originally appeared on ABACUS

The US has barred American companies from doing business with Huawei, which means you won’t be able to find the Google Play app store on future Huawei handsets. It looks like the Chinese giant is now scrambling to beef up its own app store. But building a viable alternative to the most popular Android app store is hard.

In fact, Huawei has already tried: AppGallery, its own app store, was introduced to international users last year. But just having a store isn’t enough. You need to fill it with apps… and make sure those apps actually work.

You see, many apps on the Google Play store reply on proprietary systems that only exist in Google’s flavor of Android -- not the open source version of the OS. If Huawei is forced to stop using the Google version of Android, if they create their own OS, those apps could break.

Take apps for ordering a taxi or food delivery, for instance. Many of those use maps from Google to work -- and without access to Google Maps, IDC analyst Bryan Ma told CNN that those apps may not work on Huawei handsets.

Huawei has promised developers a tool to rework their Google Play apps for AppGallery, according to documents viewed by Bloomberg. But that’s an extra barrier for developers to jump through -- and we don’t know if big-name American apps like Facebook or Instagram will be on AppGallery under Trump’s ban.

Huawei has declined to comment on this story.