Earlier this year, Huawei was added to the US Commerce Department’s ‘entity list’, which meant that American firms were not allowed to do business with the Chinese tech giant. As a result, Google announced that Huawei won’t be able to use its Android smartphone OS on its phones, which include devices sold under Huawei and Honor brands. Company CEO Ren Zhengfei, however, has now said that Huawei can still become the world's top smartphone brand even if it remains cut off from Google's software and apps. ‘I don't think that would be a problem,’ Ren said in an interview.
Joy Tan, Vice President of Public Affairs at Huawei US, recently said that US ban on using Android licence is hurting the company badly. But it seems that Huawei is self-sufficient to sustain in this cut-throat competitive market. The Chinese company is already the world's largest telecommunications equipment maker, CNN reported. It was on track to overtake Samsung as the No. 1 seller of smartphones this year, when it leapfrogged Apple to capture the second spot. The publication says that Huawei's overseas market share is shrinking because customers are wary of buying a phone that may not have access to the Google Play Store and apps.
The US alleges that equipment made by Huawei poses a national security risk. The Chinese tech giant, however, has rejected these allegations saying that nothing has been proven in this regard. Reportedly, companies like Microsoft have received licenses last week allowing them to to do limited business with the Chinese company. The Commerce Department, which gave licenses to some companies, also said that some firms have been denied licenses. Ren said that Google has neither been denied a license, nor has it yet received one.
Earlier this year, Huawei announced its own operating system called HarmonyOS. The Harmony OS 1.0 will be first adopted in Huawei’s smart screen products. Huawei’s Consumer Business Head Richard Yu had said that if the situation does not change, the company would start using its HarmonyOS on its phones as well. In fact, the company launched the Mate 30 and Mate 30 Pro smartphones without Google’s Android OS. Huawei reported 610.8 billion yuan (about $86 billion) revenue during the first three quarters of this year, which is an increase of 24.4 per cent year-on-year.
