Google is being reported to have suspended business with Huawei in regard to ‘transfer of hardware and software products except those covered by open licences’.
Reuters reports that a source says that Huawei will immediately lose access to updates to Android as well as the next version of smartphones outside of China will lose access to popular apps and services like Gmail and the Google Play Store. The reason that this does not affect smartphones in China is because normally Android phones are sold in that country without Google services installed.
The details about the specific services are apparently still being discussed internally at Google. Also, Huawei’s lawyers are also studying the impact of the U.S. Commerce Department’s actions according to a spokesperson from Huawei.
This is how this new system will work. Huawei will have access to Android through the open source licence. However, Google will stop providing technical and collaboration support for Android and Google services.
This is a significant blow to Huawei on many fronts. If their future smartphones cannot get updates to the Android as well as losing access to Google Play Store and more, it would render them unfavourable to the future customers.
This news follows the recent news on Thursday where the Trump administration officially added Huawei to a trade blacklist which makes it very hard for them to do business with US companies. It also follows the news in January where the US Department of Justice pursued criminal charges against Huawei and arrested their CFO late in 2018.
