Ever since Huawei lost the rights to use Google Play Services on its phones, one of its biggest obstacles have been in offering a solid ecosystem of apps on its otherwise well-heeled smartphones. In a bid to resolve this, Huawei appears to be in talks with Indian company IndusOS to source its App Bazaar offering on its devices. If the deal goes through, Huawei and Honor's smartphones in India may soon feature the IndusOS App Bazaar, albeit in a customised form without IndusOS' branding. A report on the matter by Economic Times states that the two companies are still in talks, and a possible deal between the two may not only bring App Bazaar to Indian devices, but also feature on Huawei phones sold abroad.
IndusOS' App Bazaar presently quotes over 60 million active users of its services on its website. In terms of popular applications, it features the likes of WhatsApp, Facebook, Instagram and TikTok as communication and social media services, Olacabs, Oyo and ClearTrip in travel and hospitality, as well as Hotstar and other apps in the entertainment section, thereby making it fairly well suited to the Indian users. In essence, it offers a reasonable substitute to the Google Play Store, which Huawei cannot feature on its phones until the US trade decision is reversed.
While it is not clear if the deal will go through, featuring IndusOS' app market will make Huawei's phones usable to many. IndusOS also features closer customisability of its interface in the local context, with its entire app store being offered in regional Indian languages to suit vernacular users in India. This can help Huawei reach out even further in India, which remains a lucrative market for smartphone OEMs even as global markets are tending towards saturation point.
IndusOS also allows users to download applications without needing users to sign in with their email or Google IDs, thereby offering an easier usage point for new users. Huawei, in response to being banned from using Google services, introduced Harmony and flaunted its own Huawei Mobile Services as a worthy alternative to the Google Play Store. However, while the same may hold true for China, where Google services are already banned, it has not been deemed sufficient in global markets, leading to subdued market performance from Huawei, which was on a steady growth path and predicted to surpass Samsung into becoming the world's number one smartphone manufacturer.
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