Without Google, Huawei is forced to jump into the unknown

After Huawei released its new smartphones Mate 30 and Mate 30 pro in Munich, Germany on Thursday afternoon, September 19, Le Monde published articles about this in its print newspaper and website on Friday. The headline of the relevant article is: China's Huawei without Google is forced to jump into the unknown world.

Huawei, the world's second-largest smartphone maker, can no longer install popular apps from US web giant Google on its new phones due to US sanctions on the company.

The French newspaper Le Monde wrote in a related article that this time, Huawei has entered a difficult situation. After being threatened with not being able to use Google's applications for several months, Huawei, the world's second largest smartphone manufacturer, is now forced to solve this problem. On Thursday, September 19, Huawei presented its latest series of mobile phones, the Mate 30, in Munich. From the press conference, it can be seen that Huawei is aware that not being able to install popular Google applications may have an impact on its consumers, because Huawei currently refuses to specify the release date of the new mobile phone in Europe.

According to the article in Le Monde, a Huawei official said: "In France, we hope to launch the product by the end of the year, but we are still considering how to do it best." At the same time, the official also admitted that he did not know whether the new mobile phone just released would be available for sale in the French market one day. The article stated that Huawei, the Shenzhen giant, is in a difficult situation. Huawei's sales outside China account for half of its total sales, and the European market is crucial to Huawei because Huawei's products sold in Europe are more high-end mobile phones, and high-end mobile phones, which is also the positioning of Huawei's new products, Mate 30 is priced at 799 euros and Mate 30 Pro is priced at 1099 euros. The price is expensive, so the performance in terms of video, photos, speed, convenience of operation, etc. should be good, for example, through facial recognition technology, ensure that only the owner of the phone can see notifications from the main screen through the main screen, etc. In addition, Huawei also shows through high pricing that it has invested a huge amount of money in research and development (US$15 billion or 13.6 billion in 2019) and its ability to compete with its competitors.

However, can the quality of the engine inside the phone make up for the inconvenience caused to consumers by the absence of Google's popular applications? An expert quoted in the French Le Monde article believes that it is not enough for a phone to have only an attractive appearance. In other words, if users use Huawei's newly released new phone, they will not have their favorite software, such as Gmail, Google Maps, Google search engine, and YouTube. In addition, in principle, consumers will no longer be able to use the Google Store, but in Europe, if they do not use Apple phones, mobile phone users are accustomed to using the Google Store to download software.

In the absence of the Google Store, users of Huawei phones must download applications through Huawei's application store. Huawei's store has 11,000 pre-installed applications, and another 44,000 applications are available through the Internet. Some of the pre-installed applications can replace Google's services. Now, the challenge facing Huawei is to get users to accept the new usage method. To this end, Huawei has announced that it will invest $1 billion to convince as many publishers as possible to refer to Huawei's applications.

But will American publishers be allowed to contribute to this effort when Huawei is blacklisted by Washington authorities? American companies that want to work with the Chinese must obtain prior authorization, something they have never had before. The result could be that owners of the Mate 30 may not be able to use the Netflix app that does not exist in the Huawei store.

The article in Le Monde also stated that the US sanctions have not affected Huawei's sales so far. However, the big change now imposed on Huawei has made Huawei jump into an unknown world.