Huawei Canada says it “will continue to provide security updates” despite Google pulling out business with the Shenzhen-based company shortly after U.S. President Donald Trump’s ban.
On May 19th, Google made the decision to suspend its business, which would involve “the transfer of hardware and software products.” It said that the company would “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.”
In a statement to MobileSyrup, the Canadian division of the company said: “Huawei will continue to provide security updates and after-sales services to all existing Huawei and Honor smartphone and tablet products, covering those that have been sold and that are still in stock globally.”
The spokesperson also said that Huawei has been working on its own operating system for a while.
“Huawei has made substantial contributions to the development and growth of Android around the world As one of Android’s key global partners, we have worked closely with their open-source platform to develop an ecosystem that has benefitted both users and the industry,” the spokesperson said.
It’s important to note that Huawei has been in the works of developing this operating system for a while and in preparation for the possibility of the U.S. banning the company.
Huawei’s CEO Richard Yu had confirmed this in April and said: “We have prepared our own operating system, if it turns out we can no longer use these systems, we will be ready and have our plan B.”
Trump signed the executive order last week banning any foreign company from supplying U.S. companies equipment if they pose a national security threat. The ban was announced alongside a national emergency regarding technology threats against America.
It was reported that the ban could potentially result in an $11 billion USD revenue loss for the country and could potentially disrupt the global supply chain.
Update 20/05/2019 5:46pm ET: The U.S. Commerce Department has granted Huawei a temporary license allowing it to maintain its current networks and allowing it to provide software updates to existing Android devices, according to Reuters. The temporary license lasts until August 19th.
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