Huawei Launches First Smartphone Without Google's Key Apps

By Sara Germano, Dan Strumpf and Parmy Olson 

MUNICH -- Huawei Technologies Co. on Thursday unveiled its first smartphone devoid of Google's most popular apps, a byproduct of the U.S.-China trade dispute that could complicate the Chinese tech giant's efforts to stoke demand for its consumer products outside China.

Since the company was added to the U.S. Commerce Department's "entity list" in May, it has been blocked from buying U.S.-sourced technology. This means Huawei's new Mate 30 phone series will run on an open-source version of Google's Android operating system, which doesn't include the Play app store and other Google apps typically built into Huawei devices such as Google Maps and YouTube.

The Commerce Department cited national security concerns as a reason to place Huawei and its affiliates on the list.

"The U.S. government forced us to do this, and we have no other solution, " said Richard Yu, Huawei's chief executive of consumer businesses. "The U.S. ban destroyed this industry, and it's harmful to U.S. companies' businesses, too."

While Mr. Yu said users may still be able to download Google's apps, either through App Gallery, Huawei's proprietary app store, or from other channels, he didn't specify which apps would be available or where.

Mr. Yu said Huawei opted to launch the Mate 30 with the open-source Android platform rather than its own nascent proprietary platform, HarmonyOS, because it wants to stay in good graces with Alphabet Inc.'s Google, which has run Android services on earlier smartphones.

Google is among a number of U.S. companies seeking permission from the Commerce Department to resume supplying Huawei, according to a person familiar with the matter.

Sales for the Mate 30 device, which is priced starting at EUR1,099 ($1,214), will be closely watched as Huawei competes for market share in Europe, the company's most important market for smartphones outside of China.

A Huawei spokesman said the phones will first go on sale in Asia next month, followed by Europe, but a specific itinerary of where the phones will be sold and when wasn't immediately available.

Changing to a new operating system is a tall order for most smartphone users, and analysts have said Western consumers are more likely to just switch to a different smartphone vendor if Huawei permanently loses access to Android.

While Huawei devices are virtually unavailable in the U.S., sales in Europe are competitive. In 2018, Samsung Electronics Co. took top billing on the continent with a 31% share of the market, followed closely behind by both Apple and Huawei with 22% share apiece, according to data from Canalys.

Although Huawei has been on the U.S. entity list for more than four months, the reason that the Mate 30 is the company's first phone to sell with only a stripped-down version of Android is that Google licenses its operating system software to phone vendors on a model-by-model basis.

Previous Huawei smartphone models before the Mate 30 received such licenses before the entity listing took effect, according to a person familiar with the matter.

Parmy Olson contributed to this article.

Write to Sara Germano at [e-mail], Dan Strumpf at [e-mail] and Parmy Olson at [e-mail]

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

September 19, 2019 12:16 ET (16:16 GMT)

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