Huawei Could Seek An Indian Startup’s Help to Fight Off Google Ban

The Chinese mobile giant is looking for alternatives as Google’s app store cannot run on its devices.

Google has ended support for Huawei devices globally.

(Photo: The Quint)

Ever since the trade war better the US and China has been making news, one of the biggest victims has been Huawei. The company has been banned from working with US-based tech giants like Google and Facebook among others.

Which is why, it has been forced into working on its own suite of apps that will replace Google’s Gmail, YouTube and Play Store as well.

Now we are hearing reports about Huawei looking to partner with an India-based startup called Indus OS, which has access to over 400,000 apps available through its app store that caters to localised products also. This has been mentioned via sources in this ET Telecom report this week.

So while Huawei continues to work with developers to make apps that will appeal to regular Android users, Indus OS will help them localise apps, which is an essential ingredient for success in the Indian mobile segment.

A few months back Huawei spoke to The Quint about its preparations for Android without support from Google, which will be offered through Huawei Mobile Services (HMS). Also, they shared the prospect of working with local startups, one of which could be Indus OS.

“We can work with developers to make local products, that we believe, could become an alternative to Facebook-centric products.”

Charles Peng, CEO, Consumer Business Group, Honor and Huawei India

To make things easier for the developers, the company has also made sure apps on HMS are as identical (in technical terms) to Google’s version of apps as possible. So, if you’ve already got apps running on Android, Charles says, “some Google Mobile Services kits will take only a few minutes to work on HMS app standards.”

Indus OS offers its apps in over 12 languages and going by what Charles shared with The Quint a few months back, this Indian startup does fit the criteria for Huawei, which is looking at a mobile ecosystem that doesn’t include Google in any way.

So, if the partnership comes through, Huawei will look to make the best of resources available through Indus OS and offer products for mobile devices, which may or may not appeal to users.