Google recently suspended some businesses with Huawei. This is in line with the United States government’s blacklist of the Chinese technology company. The Alphabet Inc’s company suspended all businesses that require the transfer of software, hardware and technical services to Huawei.

 

The suspension will negatively affect Huawei’s smartphone business outside its country, China. The tech giants will now immediately lose access to updates to Google’s Android operating system. Also, Huawei’s upcoming smartphones that run on Android will lose access to services like Gmail, YouTube app and the Google Play Store.

 

However, smartphone users who currently own Huawei gadgets will still be able to access Google apps. They will be able to download app updates provided by Google.

 

 

A Google spokesperson confirmed the news saying,

“We are complying with the order and reviewing the implications. For users of our services, Google Play and the security protections from Google Play Protect will continue to function on existing Huawei devices. Huawei will only be able to use the public version of Android, and will not be able to get access to proprietary apps and services from Google.”

 

On Thursday, 16th May 2019, the American government included Huawei Technologies Co Ltd to a trade blacklist. This immediately places restrictions that make it extremely difficult for US companies to do business with Huawei.

 

Although on the following day, on Friday, 17th May 2019, the United States Commerce Department mentioned its consideration of backing out on the restrictions on Huawei. This will guard it against existing network operations interruptions. Meanwhile, there are still ongoing speculations at the moment if ‘Huawei’s access to mobile software would be affected.’

 

What now?

According to the source from Google, the company is still in discussions on details of the exact services this will affect. Huawei’s spokesman also confirms that the company is still trying to get a hang of the impact the blacklist will have on the company.

 

 

Huawei will, in the meantime, continue to have access to the open source license version of the Android OS. The version is known as the Android Open Source Project (AOSP). This is the readily available Android OS version that anyone can use. However, henceforth, Google will now stop providing Huawei with technical support, access and collaborations involving its apps and services.

 

This means popular Google apps like YouTube, Gmail and Chrome browser in the Google Play Store will now disappear from upcoming Huawei handsets. These services are apparently not covered by the open source license, so they require a commercial agreement with Google.

 

Google confirms that there are about 2.5 billion active Android devices in the world.