Millions of Smartphone Users hit by Huawei vs. Google War

The decision of Google for severing its ties of the operating system – Android with Huawei – the handset maker of China will impact hundreds of millions of smartphone users. In the midst of the trade war between China and the United States, this decision certainly means that access to the proprietary services of Google like Maps and Gmail will be lost by the users of Huawei and the future upgrades will be shut out to Android on their phones. The hardware of the phones was hit as the supplies to Huawei were stopped by the chipmakers of the United States which was the key move by the internet giant on the software front of California. This eventually influenced a huge number of customers

In 2017, around 150 million phones were sold by Huawei in comparison to the amount of 203 million phones in 2016. Whereas, only around 50 million handhelds were sold by Huawei before its recent run-in with the administration of Donald Trump – the President in the initial quarter of 2019. Although providing updates of security has been continuously promised by Huawei for now, however, access to significant upgrades to Android released by Google may be lost by Huawei users. Further, the software patches will not be accessed by the Chinese company along with their distribution through the open-source project of Android. Moreover, Google will not be able to retain the proprietary information which eventually means that the applications on the handhelds of Huawei will no longer be in use.

This eventually also means that building an individual operating system has now become a necessity for Huawei in order to get around the ban by Google similarly like the way Apple has for its iPhones, which cannot be performed immediately. Whereas, a salutary example has been offered by Microsoft. Users were enticed by the US Company between 2010 and 2017 to purchase handhelds that are built on an individual operating system of Windows mobile. However, the plug on the OS was pulled by the company as the phones never succeeded in the first place. Likewise, no such huge competitive edge Huawei has over Microsoft provided the huge scale of its penetration in the mobile market also. Compulsion may be felt by the software developers for offering a particular version of their apps to Huawei. Another condition may be initiating of a new branch of the family of Android by this Chinese manufacturer solely depended on the available and current open source version.