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A24 TECHNOLOGY
Friday 31 January 2020
Huawei races to replace Google apps for next smartphone

By JOE McDONALD For music, Sweden's Spo-
AP Business Writer tify or France's Deezer
BEIJING (AP) — If you can may come preloaded on
make smartphone apps, phones, depending on
Chinese tech giant Huawei deals with local phone car-
wants you. riers, said Forrester's Hus-
The No. 2 global smart- son. Other options include
phone brand is struggling China's TikTok for video,
to hold onto its market after Russia's Yandex for search
Washington accused Hua- and email or OsmAnd and
wei of being a security risk MapQuest for navigation,
and blocked access to U.S. though none is as highly
components and technol- developed as Google or
ogy. Apple services.
That includes YouTube and The search goes on: At an
other popular Google "core event in New Delhi, Huawei
apps" customers expect on promised $20,000 per app
new phones. They will be for development costs, ac-
missing from the global roll- cording to the newspaper
out of Huawei's next model, Economic Times.
the P40, due out in March, In London, the website
replaced by its own music, Telecom.com said devel-
payment and other apps. opers were promised a
Huawei Technologies Ltd., 20,000 pound ($26,000) re-
along with every other In this Oct. 31, 2019 photo, attendees use their smartphones near a Huawei booth at the PT Expo ward if they meet a Jan.
smartphone brand ex- technology conference in Beijing. Chinese tech giant Huawei is racing to develop replacements 31 deadline. A video re-
cept Apple Inc., relies on for Google apps. leased by Huawei said the
Google's Android operat- Associated Press company has set aside $10
ing system. So it's scouring million to subsidize app writ-
the world for replacements. technology industries might websites. Instead, Huawei wei and other companies. ers in Poland. Huawei says
At events for developers split into Chinese, U.S. and phones come with Chinese Replacing Google apps is its 2019 sales rose 18% to
from New Delhi to Warsaw other spheres with incom- search engine Baidu.com, "a massive undertaking for $122 billion. But it warned
to Sao Paulo, Huawei is patible products. video service Youku.com any company," said Der- the smartphone business,
promising cash rewards if Huawei's founder, Ren and other local apps. mot Daly, chief executive which shipped 240 million
they meet a deadline Fri- Zhengfei, has said it wants But Huawei competes on a of Tapadoo, an Irish app handsets last year in 170
day to get apps onto its on- to stay in a unified glob- level playing field in China developer that isn't working countries, could suffer.
line store. al industry and work with with competitors that face for Huawei. The Trump administration
The company says it will in- Google and other U.S. part- the same restrictions. In Huawei Mobile Services of- has postponed full enforce-
vest $1.5 billion in app de- ners. The Android system other foreign markets the fers some 45,000 apps. But ment of sanctions after U.S.
velopment. It faces an ex- is open-source, meaning others have the popular that is barely 1.5% of the 3 processor chip makers and
pensive, uphill struggle to phone brands use it for free Google package. million titles on Google Play other vendors warned they
create alternatives to the but most also pay Google For the P40, Huawei has Store, where most Android would lose billions of dol-
Google-centered world for "core apps" and the signed an agreement for users get apps. lars in sales. But Ren, the
of music, navigation and software to support them. developers to use maps Huawei needs to replace company founder, has said
other apps, according to Huawei can keep using An- from a Dutch provider, Google code that supports Huawei expects them to
industry experts. Others in- droid but is blocked from TomTom. Details of other video and other features, go ahead.
cluding Nokia and Micro- buying those "core apps" services have yet to be an- said Daly. Then it needs to Huawei has one of the
soft have tried and failed for pre-installation. That nounced. persuade developers to world's biggest research-
to create their own mobile threatens to cripple Hua- In response to questions, adapt apps to run on Hua- and-development budgets
ecosystems. wei's ability to compete Huawei said executives wei's new code. and ramped up spend-
Creating "diverse apps" is with market leader Sam- would talk to reporters next "They're not building from ing on developing its own
a "really challenging task sung and other Android- month at the Mobile World scratch, but they face a chips and other technol-
to Huawei," said chairman based phones. Congress, the industry's big technical hurdle," said ogy long before running
Guo Ping in videotaped Consumers expect "well- biggest annual event. The Daly. "Becoming a world- afoul of Washington.
comments released by the known apps that their peers chief executive of Huawei's class software maker is a It spent more than $15 bil-
company. are using," such as Google consumer unit, Richard Yu, massive challenge." lion last year — more than
Huawei, also the world's Maps, said Thomas Husson, told reporters in December Nokia Corp. took a simi- Apple or Microsoft — and
biggest maker of switching a principal analyst for For- the P40 would be launched lar approach with its first a total of 485 billion yuan
gear for phone networks, rester, in an email. "It would in Paris in late March, using smartphone a decade ($65 billion) over the de-
rejects U.S. accusations it require massive investment Android instead of Huawei's ago but failed to attract cade before that. Industry
might facilitate Chinese to convince developers to HarmonyOS operating sys- enough apps for its system, analysts say the company
spying. Chinese officials develop for a new eco-sys- tem, which it unveiled last said Daly. He said Micro- is increasingly self-sufficient
accuse Washington of us- tem and a lot of marketing year. soft Corp. tried again af- in chips and other compo-
ing phony security claims efforts." HarmonyOS is based on ter acquiring Nokia's mo- nents.
to hurt a commercial rival. Huawei already sells code developed for other bile phone unit in 2013 but Huawei has yet to confirm
The Trump administration phones without Google Huawei devices and could faced similar lack of devel- details of the P40, but news
also is pressing European "core apps" in China, where replace Android if needed. oper interest. reports suggest it will run
and other allies to exclude the ruling Communist Par- But the company wants to Such difficulties highlight on the company's Kirin 990
Huawei switching gear ty's internet filters block keep working with Google, the dominance of U.S. app chip instead of one from
from next-generation tele- access to YouTube, the which has spent more than providers and the very Qualcomm or Intel. That re-
com networks. Google search engine and a decade improving An- gradual emergence of duces risks of supply disrup-
The conflict has fed fears thousands of other foreign droid with input from Hua- global alternatives. tions. q