A trade war between the United States and China had one weighty casualty – Huawei. Even after the trade deal between the two nations, trouble for Huawei with the US government hasn’t ended. Telecom equipment and smartphone maker still hasn’t been allowed to offer Google Mobile Services (GMS) in its smartphones, which are essential for the Android ecosystem to function properly. Huawei is now trying to move on with its own Huawei Mobile services (HMS) with its own App Gallery store.
Huawei AppGallery: An alternative to Google Play Store
Post the US government restrictions Google was forced to pull out Google Play Stores from new Huawei and Honor phones.
The AppGallery has been there for years now, but it’s only after the US-China trade saga that Huawei has decided to push it more actively as a PlayStore alternative in the global markets.
Huawei unsaid vision for The AppGallery seems to replace Google Play Store from other Chinese OEMs as well. That’s why Huawei made the AppGlalery an open app distribution platform.
Currently, this Huawei market place is available in more than 170 counties and claims to have 400 million monthly potential users. If these claimed numbers are legit, then it is currently the third-largest app market globally. With 1.6 billion monthly users Google is miles ahead in this race.
Is your favourite app available on Huawei AppGallery?
Well, Huawei did manage to get some of the most popular apps on board but several biggies are still missing. So you will find likes of Snapchat, TikTok, Deezer, Amazon, Amazon Prime Videos, Booking.com, BBC News, etc on the Huawei AppGallery. However, apps like Facebook, WhatsApp, Instagram, Netflix, Messenger, and some others are still not available on Huawei’s app store. Google’s YouTube, Gmail, Google Photos, Google Maps, Drive are also not a part of Huawei’s AppGallery store.
Users don’t always have to install available apps. Huawei’s AppGallery also has a feature called Quick Apps which works the same as Google’s Instant Apps. Users don’t have to install and keep Quick Apps, but opening app links can still open parts of apps or app-like interface.
As per Huawei, its AppGallery has more than 1,700 Quick Apps which have been used on over 350 million Huawei phone. Huawei claims many more Quick Apps are on their way.
Things could take a favorable turn in the future. Huawei has been approaching and signing deals with popular developers like Amazon, Microsoft, Epic Games, Wattpad etc. and is also trying to tempt developers to put in extra work.
Offering a major chunk of revenue to developers
Developer community have often call out Google and Apple for their unfair revenue sharing. Both giants take spilt revenue with developers in 30:70 ratio. Huawei is offering developers a better revenue percentage – up to 90 percent in education, up to 85 percent on games and other categories.
By offering a better share of revenue, Huawei is hoping to encourage developers to join its platform. If Windows Phone experience is anything to go by, this will surely be an uphill task; but yes, if anyone, Huawei does have the resources to pull it off.
