Huawei delays sale of Mate 30 smartphones in Europe as trade ban bars access to Google apps, services

The telecommunications equipment giant will promote its own Huawei Mobile Services ecosystem in lieu of Google’s

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Richard Yu Chengdong, chief executive of Huawei Technologies’ consumer business group, introduces the company’s new Mate 30 series smartphones in Munich, Germany, on September 19. Photo: Reuters

Li Taoin Shenzhen

Published: 11:00pm, 19 Sep 2019Updated: 3:52pm, 20 Sep 2019

Huawei Technologies will delay sales of its newly launched Mate 30 smartphone series in Europe, the company’s biggest market outside China, because the handsets have no access to Google apps and services under a US trade ban.

The new flagship line – comprising 4G and 5G versions of the Mate 30 and the Mate 30 Pro – will start pre-orders in mainland China next week and will be available in Southeast Asia sometime next month, according to a Huawei spokesman late on Thursday after the product’s launch in Munich, Germany, on the same day. Huawei has set no timetable for the availability of the Mate 30 in Europe.

The Shenzhen-based company will promote its own Huawei Mobile Services (HMS) ecosystem, in lieu of Google’s own system, to support users of the Mate 30 series and the foldable Mate X, another 5G smartphone that will be released in China next month. It has also earmarked US$1 billion to provide incentives for HMS app developers.

“I want to tell global developers, come use HMS,” said Richard Yu Chengdong, chief executive of Huawei’s consumer business group, at the launch. “We can use HMS app gallery on the Mate 30 series.” Yu indicated that HMS currently has 570 million monthly active users, who use Huawei cloud, music, video and other services through its app gallery.

That announcement confirmed a South China Morning Post report on August 29 about the company’s plans to delay sales of the Mate 30 series in overseas markets. The US trade ban on Huawei prevents the Chinese telecommunications equipment giant from selling its high-end devices with popular Google mobile services, such as Google Play and Google Maps.

Richard Yu Chengdong, chief executive of Huawei Technologies’ consumer business group, holds the new Huawei Mate 30 Pro smartphone at its launch in Munich, Germany, on Thursday. The device runs Huawei’s own Kirin 990 series chipset. Photo: EPA-EFE

“The lack of Google apps would dramatically reduce the value and usability of Huawei’s new smartphones outside China,” said Bryan Ma, vice-president of client devices research at IDC. “It’s not easy to create a new ecosystem either, especially if Google doesn’t port its apps over.”