New York (Reuters) – Google has announced the suspension of business with Huawei after the Trump administration added Huawei Technologies Co Ltd to the Entity List which is a trade blacklist on May 16 (Thursday).
According to a report by Reuters, Google will cease to conduct business with Huawei in areas that require the transferring of hardware, software, and technical services. The only access that Huawei will retain is those publicly available via open source licensing.
The news came as a huge blow to the Chinese tech giant who recently jumped ahead of Apple.
Read related: Huawei jumps ahead of Apple in tough smartphone market
Effective immediately, Huawei gadgets, both old and new, will have no further Android security updates. This includes the recently launched P30, P30 Pro, and the Mate 20 Pro.
“Huawei Technologies Co Ltd will immediately lose access to updates to the Android operating system, and the next version of its smartphones outside of China will also lose access to popular applications and services including the Google Play Store, YouTube and Gmail app,” reported Reuters who had a source close to the matter.
“Huawei will only be able to use the public version of Android and will not be able to get access to proprietary apps and services from Google,” the source added.
Following the announcement, Android provided the following update on May 20, to shed some light on Huawei users’ questions.
“For Huawei users’ questions regarding our steps to comply w/ the recent US government actions: We assure you while we are complying with all US gov’t requirements, services like Google Play & security from Google Play Protect will keep functioning on your existing Huawei device,” said the tweet posted on Android’s account.
For Huawei users' questions regarding our steps to comply w/ the recent US government actions: We assure you while we are complying with all US gov't requirements, services like Google Play & security from Google Play Protect will keep functioning on your existing Huawei device.
— Android (@Android) May 20, 2019
Meanwhile, Huawei had previously stated that it has been busily planning for any ban, even a six-year or more ban of Android and has been developing its own technology as a contingency plan. The company noted that some of the alleged technology is already in use in China.
In a report by ITV News, there have been fears that the Chinese government could use Huawei as an avenue or “back door” to spy on the communication networks of other countries such as the United States, hence the blacklist.
Huawei has not provided any comments on the block.-/TISG
Read related: Huawei P30 Pro battles it out with Samsung Galaxy S10 Plus