Supposedly "friendly" countries such as Germany and the UK were told that intelligence sharing arrangements with the US could be at risk unless steps were taken to stop the use of Huawei equipment in carrier networks. Initially, it targeted commercial and industrial equipment supplied by Huawei. The US Government's crusade against Huawei is often seen as part of a broader trade war which is ongoing between the two countries and has seen punitive 25% trade tariffs applied to certain products imported from China to the US. In these markets, and others such as Japan where carriers have announced a scaling back of support for the devices, owners are likely to see a reduction in the level of service available to them from Google apps, as updates can no longer be applied. EE’s parent company, BT, said this was because it is unsure what level of support it will be able to offer in the future to their customers who buy Huawei handsets through them. In the UK, carriers EE and Vodaphone have both dropped plans to provide the Huawei Mate X 5G from their line up of devices which will access their upcoming 5G mobile networks. Huawei users in China, where Google’s services are largely blocked anyway, will be mostly unaffected. Over the past year, the US Government – and specifically president Donald Trump – has grown increasingly hostile towards the Chinese manufacturer, citing concerns over security due to its close links to the Chinese government and military.įurther confusion was caused when Trump appeared to say that although the restrictions on dealing with Huawei were due to it being a security threat, they could be removed as an incentive during negotiations around a trade deal with the Chinese government.Īs Huawei’s phones aren’t officially available in the US, this post is mainly aimed at readers in Europe, where Huawei has seen tremendous success in recent years, and other parts of the world where their phones are readily available and packaged with monthly tariffs by major mobile operators. While these apps won’t disappear from user’s phones, Huawei owners may no longer (or for much longer) be able to use Google’s Play services to receive updates.