Huawei has long struggled with US government attacks. The company had both hardware and software. In the recent promotion, the company had to close its Kirin chip division. In November, the company took a drastic measure – it sold the Honor smartphones division.
For those unaware of this, Honor started out as a range of Huawei smartphones and quickly evolved into a separate brand. Huawei was one of the first Chinese giants to introduce a sub-brand in the market. Huawei has long shared its software and resources with the Honor smartphones. Now that the company has been sold to a Chinese group, that is about to change.
Honor will now flourish on its own, and not a firm owned by Huawei holds benefits. The largest one is currently trading in US companies, including Google. Huawei lost access to Google Apps a long time ago, and this has led the company to develop its own ecosystem that comes in the form of Huawei Mobile Services and AppGallery. Things got even more complicated last year when the license for Android updates expired, which means the company can no longer update its smartphones to Android 11. Instead, the fast migration to HarmonyOS will have to start.
Future Honor smartphones include Google Mobile Services
As an independent company, Honor is free to use Google Mobile Services and navigate the Android waters. According to a report by a reputable Russian newspaper, Honor is working on a new range of smartphones that Google Services can manage. The report states that the separation of Huawei means that AppGallery will be available for the current Honor Phones. However, new devices do not have easy access to the HMS ecosystem. Honor has launched more than 18 months of non-GMS phones and now we are going to see a return to Google’s world.
At the moment, it is unclear which first smartphones will come with GMS. One might think of the V40 series, but it does not seem to be happening. These phones were developed under the ownership of Huawei, so they will come with Magic UI and have no GMS access. This is likely to change with the Honor X11 and Honor 40 phones. These devices are likely to include new software and have free access to Google applications.