Rival phone brands Samsung, Xiaomi, Oppo to benefit from Google’s suspension of services to Huawei
- In overseas markets, the removal of popular Google services from handsets means that consumers will think twice about buying Huawei devices in future
- Analysts said the ban will also have a negative impact on the US internet giant
Google’s restriction of business ties with Huawei, the world’s No 2 smartphone maker, could obliterate demand for the Chinese company’s devices overseas and give market leader Samsung a leg up in cementing its lead in Android devices.
Google’s move to curtail access to its Android operating system – in response to Huawei being placed on a US trade blacklist – means that the Shenzhen-based company will no longer be able to run Google’s popular apps and services such as Gmail, YouTube or its Google Play app store, on future Huawei devices.
For markets outside China, the removal of these critical Google services will mean that overseas consumers will think twice about buying Huawei devices in future. That is a big problem for Huawei, as about half of the 208 million smartphones it shipped in 2018 went to markets outside of China.
“As far as overseas markets go, this move just turned Huawei’s upcoming phones into paperweights,” said Bryan Ma, vice-president of client devices research at IDC Asia-Pacific. “The phones won’t be very useful any more without Google apps on them, and other apps will be unable to call on Google Play services.”
While Huawei will not lose all access to Android – the core operating system is an open source project – in practice all the major handset vendors rely on Google for support and the popular services that run on the platform.