Without Android for its future terminals, the Chinese group, second seller of smartphones of the globe, could have big difficulties to maintain its growth on the Old Continent.

A new one has the effect of a bomb. Last Wednesday, Washington signed a decree aimed at including Huawei. In addition to prohibiting the market of the country of Uncle Sam, it must prevent him from acquiring the American technologies he needs. On the night of Sunday to Monday, Google announced that, to comply with the new rules, he was going to cut the bridges with the Chinese giant. Thus, Huawei will soon no longer have access to Android, its operating system, which is the world standard for years.

This means, in short, that Huawei’s future smartphones will not have access to Google’s proprietary services. Among them, there is its online store (Google Play), as well as the flagship apps of the Mountain View group, like Gmail, Youtube, Google Map or Chrome. This is not a problem for China, Huawei’s main market. Google’s main services are already banned. And Huawei, like its rivals, already offers its Chinese customers local alternatives.

On the other hand, to do without Android is likely to be a serious problem in Europe. On the Old Continent, Google’s services and apps are widely acclaimed by consumers. Certainly, Huawei may very well choose to develop a home operating system – as it has often envisioned in recent years – with its own application store. But not sure that customers, accustomed to Android and its popular apps, are ready to adopt.

This could hinder Huawei’s tremendous growth in Europe in recent years. However, this market is key for the Chinese giant, now the second largest smartphone seller in the world behind Samsung but ahead of Apple. According to IDC, Huawei now sells nearly a third of its smartphones in Europe, which is its largest international market. The continent is a major catalyst for sales, which totaled more than 200 million units last year.

A very lucrative Old Continent
Sign of the importance of Europe for Huawei, the Shenzhen group has made Paris its favorite playground to lift the veil on its new smartphones. On March 26, it was at the Parc des Expositions that he presented his latest, the P30, with a powerful camera. A year earlier, he had offered himself nothing less than the nave of the Grand Palais to extol his predecessor, the P20.