Europe has been one of Huawei’s biggest success stories. Now it is on the front line of the trade and technology war between China and the United States.
The move by Google this week to cut off Android support to phones made by Huawei, the Chinese telecom giant, will hobble their European users and highlights how deeply the Continent relies on American and Chinese companies for gadgets, apps and internet services.
From its early days selling equipment to wireless carriers, Huawei has expanded at an extraordinary rate in Europe, capturing more than a quarter of the smartphone market. Google’s action is “potentially catastrophic” for Huawei’s hopes in Europe, said Ben Stanton, a senior analyst at Canalys, a research firm.
The Trump administration’s order this month barring American telecommunications firms from using foreign-made equipment that could pose a threat to national security — exactly what Washington has accused Huawei of doing — is likely to have a knock-on effect on smartphone users’ experience. Google Maps and other apps, for example, will not be supported.
European customers will be hit harder than those in the United States or China. Huawei phones are largely unavailable in the United States, and Google’s services have long been blocked in China by the government.
But they are best sellers in countries like Greece, Portugal and Spain. Those phones, plus robust sales of telecommunications equipment, have made the market covering Europe, the Middle East and Africa into Huawei’s second biggest after China. It accounted for 28 percent of Huawei’s revenue in 2018, compared with 7 percent from the Americas.
The pressure has mounted. Since the administration’s order, one company after another has moved to suspend business with the company, which is the world’s second-largest smartphone maker, after Samsung.
Google announced its pullback on Monday. The Commerce Department said it would grant a 90-day extension for companies to work out how to support existing cellular networks and handsets, but Google said it planned to abide by the ruling once the time expired.
Source: nytimes
