Huawei is reportedly in talks with Aptoide, a Portugal-based app marketplace for Android devices, to provide an alternative to Google Play. The news was first reported by Portuguese news media and follows Google’s decision to bar access for Huawei devices from the Play Store after the Chinese company was added to the US government’s trade blacklist.
Aptoide is reportedly one of the largest alternative Android app marketplaces, with more than 900,000 apps and 200 million active users. It has partnered with major Chinese smartphone makers Xiaomi, Oppo, and Vivo in the past. In contrast, Google Play has an estimated 2.6 million apps, according to figures cited on Statista.
Huawei also has its own app marketplace, called App Gallery, which comes pre-installed on most of its devices but remains smaller than Aptoide, according to tech news outlet Gizmochina.