Back on May 16, the US Government and President Trump announced a series of sanctions against Huawei. As a result, many US companies have been forced to discontinue business with Huawei, including Google, which provides Android OS. Without a properly operating system, the company started to rush the development of its own OS. With the ban, the future of many Huawei smartphones was compromised, and some devices like the Honor 20 Pro were forced to step back.
Despite the fact that Huawei can continue to use the open source Android system (AOSP), the devices would lack some essential services from Google. Future Honor and Huawei smartphones would require Google’s GMS certification, and without it, there’s no Play Store, Gmail, YouTube or other Google related apps.
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One time that Huawei is one of the main players in the Android ecosystem, Google isn’t happy in losing ten million users to an “uncertified” branch of Android. Therefore, the search giant actively lobbied the US official to waive its Android operating system ban against Huawei. The argument is that Huawei will branch Android into a “hybrid” version, which will “be more likely to be hacked.” The search giant stated that many US citizens using Huawei smartphones would be in risk without the “Google’s Play” shield.
Apparently, Google’s efforts seem to have played a role. According to a report, Honor 20 Pro has successfully obtained Google Certification. In other words, the handset can be listed overseas. The report continues by stating that the handset that was originally planned for May, should be released in Mid-July. For now, the company is more concerned with the global reception of the Honor 20, which launch is scheduled for June 21. The device already sold one million units in China despite the US ban, let’s see how it’ll perform in the overseas markets.