Chinese telecom equipments and smartphone giant Huawei’s app store now has 400 million monthly active users from more than 170 countries and areas, the company’s Consumer Business Group announced on February 24 at a Product and Strategy online launch event it hosted in Barcelona, Spain.
Amid the trade tension between the two countries, Shenzhen-based Huawei has been banned by the U.S. government from using Google Mobile Services (GMS) and applications that are part of it, including Chrome, YouTube, Google Play Store, etc. All these are the essentials for an Android smartphone user.
The ban hit the biggest phone maker in China at a bad time as it advances to oversea markets like North America and Europe, where GMS is mainstream for local Android ecosystems.
To circumvent the restriction, Huawei launched its in-house developed mobile ecosystem, Huawei Mobile Service (short for HMS) as a substitute. HMS had a total of 570 million monthly active users across the globe, as Richard Yu Chengdong, chief executive of Huawei’s consumer business group, announced in September 2019.
On Monday, it’s reported that Huawei is working on its own search engine to join HMS’ other apps like voice assistant, cloud service, browser, music, and video in an aim to fully replace Google’s Android apps matrix.
Besides, the tech giant said last year that it’s also testing Harmony OS, an operating system that would eventually replace Android in all the Huawei devices, from mobile phones to laptops, tablets, and smartwatches.
