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Huawei was one of Google's biggest mobile partners until last year. The regime action that cut Huawei off from US businesses meant Google could no longer license its services to the Chinese megacorporation. Huawei has been trudging onward without Google services, just that might change soon. Google has filed a formal application with the US authorities for an exemption to go along working with Huawei.

The US government nether Trump began targeting Huawei in 2018 when it pressured carriers to drib plans to sell the company'due south Mate 10 Pro smartphone. In spring 2019, the Commerce Department dropped the hammer, adding Huawei to the "Entity Listing." That barred US firms from doing business with Huawei, unless they could get a special exemption. The government refused to process any of those applications for many months, but Microsoft eventually got i to continue licensing Windows to Huawei.

Huawei was close to overtaking Samsung to get the largest smartphone maker in the world before the ban took effect. Since so, Huawei has been forced to launch several phones without Google services. Its own store and app suite have filled in the gaps, but many Android users won't consider buying a phone without Google services. Nevertheless, Huawei has remained afloat thanks to booming sales in China. Devices like the Mate thirty had such compelling hardware that some people were willing to overlook the software situation.

The Mate 30 was the beginning Huawei device to launch without Google apps.

Most companies wouldn't have had whatsoever hope of making smartphones without United states technology, simply Huawei makes almost of its ain hardware, and Android itself is open source. Google services don't work in Prc, and so the company already had many of the pieces it needed to roll out non-Google phones in other countries. Huawei has even announced its ain Android alternative called Harmony Os, which it could begin using in the future to make itself even less dependent on U.s. engineering.

If granted, the exemption would again permit Google to license its mobile services to Huawei. A company executive recently said that Huawei wouldn't come up back to Google fifty-fifty if it could. Huawei's management team pushed dorsum confronting that statement, just not very hard. It'south unlikely Google would get to the trouble of applying for an exemption if information technology didn't think Huawei would be willing to become a partner again.

Top image credit: Getty Images

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