Huawei faces difficulties when the US boycotts Chinese applications 1
On August 5, the US State Department launched the `Application Purge` project, encouraging software development companies to remove their applications from Huawei’s App Gallery.
Huawei had to stop producing Kirin chips due to US pressure on Taiwanese semiconductor companies.
Although the Clean Network program is not legally required, it will make application developers weigh the geopolitical risks of continuing to cooperate with Chinese companies.
Paul Triolo of Eurasia Organization shared with Nikkei Asian Review: `Clean Network will impact Huawei’s strategy to expand the developer ecosystem for Harmony OS, while the new operating system is intended to be widely deployed.
At a Chinese technology conference last week, facing the challenge of building its own application ecosystem, Huawei’s CEO confirmed that the company will not be able to produce Kirin chips from next month.
`Chip production will be stopped after September 15,` said Richard Yu, CEO of Huawei’s Consumer Business Group.
Huawei’s self-designed chip helps its smartphones compete with Apple’s iPhone.
Washington’s latest move against Huawei comes after the Chinese company overtook Samsung to become the world’s number one smartphone maker in terms of shipments – largely thanks to its dominance.
Huawei introduced its Harmony operating system at its 2019 developers event. Photo: Uganda Minnor.
Huawei is still developing its own operating system and application store since the US cut off important Google services last year.
To compensate for Google services, Huawei has spent heavily to attract application developers to AppGallery – its version of Google Play.
Huawei’s AppGallery was previously only widely used in China, where Google is not available, but it has now become the only option for Huawei smartphone users around the world because Google Play cannot be accessed.
Huawei successfully attracted about 1.6 million programmers to build applications for its operating system last year, but that number is still less than 1/10 of the number of application developers on the iOS or Android platforms.
Not having apps from the US will affect Huawei’s overseas users more than in its home market.
New Huawei phones launched after September 2019 have all switched to AppGallery instead of Google Play Store.
Lawrence Lin of DMC & Partners said: `The market has become a bipolar world for application developers. They are forced to choose whether to prioritize their resources for the Chinese ecosystem or invest in
Lin is also a longtime app developer and entrepreneur.
`The Clean Network program will make international app developers reluctant to customize for Chinese users, if the Chinese market is not their top priority,` Lin said.
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Stacy Wu, an analyst at Omedia, said it is currently unclear how many app developers will respond to the US call to remove their apps from Huawei’s platform.
According to Omedia’s forecast, Huawei’s global smartphone sales will decrease by about 20%, to 196 million units, this year and further decrease to 147 million handsets next year due to challenges.
The expansion of the Clean Network program also calls for the removal of `untrusted` Chinese apps from Apple’s App Store and Google Play.
Huawei declined to comment on this action.
On August 6, President Donald Trump signed an order banning transactions with WeChat and ByteDance, the owner of TikTok.
