Huawei has been at the centre of the US/China trade war and recent happenings show the war isn’t ending anytime soon. The Chinese tech giant was placed on the United States government’s Entity List which prevents U.S. firms from working with the company but got a temporary reprieve recently. In a new twist, Google has come out to clarify that Huawei would be in violation of the ban if the Mate 30 series models come with the officially licensed version of Android that includes the Google Play Store and other Google-branded apps.
Huawei is expected to announce the Mate 30 Pro and Mate 30 around September this year and it would be first major flagship model that would be coming out from its stable since it was placed on the United States government’s Entity List. But according to a Google spokesperson who spoke with Reuters, the US company would need to apply for a license from the U.S. government if Huawei was to release the Mate 30 series with a fully licensed version of Android. That is because the Huawei Mate 30 Pro would be classified as a new device and not one that existed when the trade ban went into effect. 
Huawei already has a new OS dubbed HarmonyOS which is sort of an alternative to Android but the company says it doesn’t want to release a smartphone with HarmonyOS and that it certainly has no plans to do so this year. However, it is left to be seen how Huawei will wade through this challenge that would threaten the global launch of the Mate 30 series.
Huawei could still use Android but it would need a license to offer its apps and services known as Google Mobile Services. In China, this may not be a problem since consumers over there are used to Android devices without Google services. The Google spokesperson refused to confirm or deny whether Google applied for such a license. However, Google has severally indicated that it wants to continue working with Huawei.
UP NEXT: One-third of smartphones sold in Q2 2019 were sold by Samsung and Huawei – Gartner
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