Local Huawei officials and customers reflect confusion
Caught in the middle as the victim of the ongoing trade war between the US and China when US President Donald Trump cracked down on Chinese technology companies, the world’s second-largest smartphone maker Huawei is marking time.
Its local officials in Colombo reflected some confusion saying, ‘there’s NO problem’ pertaining to issues relating to the US-China tech competition which analysts however say will be more intense and drawn out, significantly outlasting the trade tensions.
According to local Huawei staff, they don’t foresee a problem because there isn’t one. “We have been informed by our head office that there’s no problem,” an employee in a Huawei sales outlet told the Business Times. Many other Huawei staff echoed similar sentiments. What was evident however was that staff appeared to be confused as to what was going on. Some 40 per cent of Sri Lanka’s smartphone market is dominated by Huawei.
The local Huawei office in a statement on Tuesday said that Huawei has made substantial contributions to the development and growth of Android around the world. “As one of the key global partners, we have worked closely with their open source platform to develop an ecosystem that has benefitted both users and the industry. Huawei will continue to provide security updates and after sales services to all existing Huawei and honour smartphone and tablet products covering those have been sold or still in stock globally,” it said adding that Sri Lankan customers are also assured of continuous support for present, existing Huawei smartphones in the market.
Certain employees spoke of Huawei still using the version of the Android operating system available through an open source licence and how the ban won’t impact the company’s phone sales. But this too will be short term. The company was dealt a sledgehammer blow by Google which discontinued Huawei’s Android licence after the US Commerce Department placed the Chinese tech giant on the banned ‘Entity List’. This is a list of companies that are unable to buy technology from US companies with no government approval alluding to cyber-espionage worries. In 2018, US intelligence agencies alerted against using Huawei and ZTE devices, and US politicians have described Huawei as “effectively an arm of the Chinese government.”
Now Google will let them use Android and its basic services for free but transfer of hardware, software or services to Huawei or technical interaction would be restricted by the US order. Also when Google launches the next version of Android later this year, it may not be available on Huawei devices. So, future Huawei devices possibly won’t have apps such as YouTube and Maps.
Analysts noted that alternative suppliers such as Ericsson, Nokia and potentially Samsung can step in as a replacement for Huawei but in the longer run cost and scale will come into play.
The Chinese tech giant sold 59.1 million phones in the first quarter of this year and has also totalled about half of the 5G equipment market, shifting centrifugal force from western companies to China, and setting off fears that most 5G traffic will flow through Huawei mechanisms which will let China seize and spy on the next evolution of mobile telecommunications protocol.
The beleaguered phone maker — under the sights of the US Government whose trade war with China has become white hot in recent weeks after bubbling since early this year , will witness low sales in the medium term. “Their sales won’t be instantly impacted by the decision, but the future of updates for those phones and any new phones Huawei would produce, will,” an analyst told the Business Times. It’s not understandable how this will influence the full range of Android integrations that Huawei relies on, he added.
Lahiru Pathmalal CEO, Takas Pvt Ltd., an online trading platform noted to the Business Times that Huawei developing and releasing its own open-source operating system, and its own apps (as done by Apple) avoiding their customers’ need to use Google’s apps will stand them on a better footing in the whole situation. “Such a system is already deployed in China and it may be rolled out in the rest of the world.”
What is concerning if this doesn’t happen is that existing phones will continue to work but without future updates they will slowly turn into aging bricks.