While HONOR has officially separated as an independent company from Huawei, the question has arisen among many whether future HONOR smartphones would feature Google applications and services preinstalled. Interestingly, George Zhao, the CEO of HONOR has hinted that the company would be partnering with the Mountain View company to offer Google services on their devices.
In an interview with the South China Morning Post, Zhao mentions that HONOR and Google are already in talks to provide Google based services. However, there isn’t any mention if HONOR would provide any update to install Google applications for its recently announced HONOR V40 smartphone. Since the time where Huawei started depending on its own AppGallery, many users were not able to install Google applications due to the lack of Google PlayStore integration. While the Huawei AppGallery provides tons of applications that are free to download, there are still many applications present on the Google PlayStore that are not available on Huawei’s alternative store, where users had to resort to manually install using APK files.
While HONOR and Huawei make some amazing smartphones for the entry-level, mid-range, and high-end premium devices, its quite a let down for many users due to the lack of Google PlayStore, and the reintroduction of Google services can be a big relief for many users who are loyal to the brand. HONOR has released many smartphones that offer value and performance for the price. Zhao also mentions that the company wants to develop smartphones that can take on the likes of its former owner Huawei and even other big names such as Apple.
“Our core mission this year is to make flagship phones that can compete with Apple and Huawei in China,” “No matter who the competitors are, we have a target to surpass them, including Huawei,”, said Zhao.
It’s just a matter of time where we would start to see the next series of HONOR devices come preinstalled with popular Google applications such as Gmail, Google Maps, Google Drive, Duo, YouTube, Calendar, Google Meet, Google PlayStore, and more.
