Well, we know that Google has halted its services for Huawei, canceling its Android and Play Store license. Though the ban has been temporarily lifted thanks to the US govt’s relief of 90 days, it appears that Huawei was already prepared for tough situations like these. As we previously told you that Huawei has already been working on its own mobile OS for the last seven years, now according to a Portuguese media outlet Huawei is in talks with Aptoide — an alternative marketplace for mobile apps, to potentially replace the Google Play Store as well.
See Also: 5 reasons why halting Android license for Huawei is Google’s own loss
Aptoide, the Portugal based company, is already negotiating with Huawei to develop a premier App Store for the Chinese company. Aptoide is a renowned name in Europe as it hosts more than 900,000 apps with almost 200 million users and has worked with smartphone giants like Oppo. Besides repositories like APK Mirror, Aptoide has become the most popular unofficial source to download Android apps, even when it may not be supported via Google Play Store.
See Also: Huawei has been working on its own mobile OS, “Hongmeng” for the last seven years
As a matter of fact, the news has also been confirmed by the CEO of Aptoide, Paulo Trezentos, however, he has clarified that no deal has been made until now. We see no reason to doubt this though, especially seeing how Huawei’s already got an alternative OS in development. Meanwhile, Aptoide already works with Oppo, so there’s no reason for them to work with another Chinese smartphone company. Moreover, Aptoide is also a Portuguese company and restrictions imposed by the US doesn’t affect their business.
Additionally, it would be interesting to see whether or not Huawei replaces its pre-existing “App Gallery” app store with Aptoide. It is important to note here that the App Gallery is Huawei’s own app store that comes pre-installed with most of their devices. However, it is comparatively small than Aptoide which has over thousands of applications. We believe we could see Huawei merge Aptoide content into the App Gallery, but that is something needs to be officially confirmed by Huawei.
How do you think that Chinese tech-giant will counter this humongous task and continue with the same success that it has been witnessing up till now?
