San Francisco, .- The decision of Alphabet (Google’s parent company) and other companies to abandon their commercial transactions with Huawei to comply with the order of President Donald Trump will have a great impact on the European and Latin American market, and a much smaller one in this country and in China.
Since it was branded by Congress to be a national “security threat”, in 2012, Huawei has hardly had a presence in the country (its market share is less than 1% according to StatCounter), so the veto will be noticed much more between industry and suppliers than on the street.
In China, for its part, who has virtually no presence is Google, so that Huawei phones in that country (which accounts for about half of their sales) operate with a modified version of Android that does not have installed the flagship applications of the signature, such as Google Maps, YouTube or Gmail.
It is in the rest of the world, especially in Europe and Latin America, where Huawei’s standard quality and economic phones that use the Android operating system have managed to penetrate strongly in the market, and therefore is where the percentage of users expected to be affected is greater.
In Europe, Huawei is, with almost 18% market share, the third largest player behind Samsung and Apple (with a special presence in Spain, where it exceeds 20%), while in Latin America the figures vary greatly according to the country, highlighting 28% of Costa Rica, 25% of Peru, 18% of Colombia and 17% of Chile.
After the information appeared published in the press on Sunday night, Google has confirmed that it is “complying with the order (issued by the Government) and reviewing its implications” and has clarified that it will maintain access to Google Play and Google Play Protect for current Huawei users, but it will not allow them to update Android.
The problem will be greater for those who buy a new Huawei phone, since having withdrawn Alphabet the licenses of their products to the Chinese manufacturer, they will not come with Google Play, which means de facto the inability to access all applications designed to Android that are not in open source.
Although the veto of Alphabet is the most immediately noticeable to the user and the one that has caused more media stir, six US and one German electronic components manufacturers have also announced that they break commercial relations with Huawei.
Processor companies Intel, Qualcomm, Xilinx and Broadcom, Germany’s Infineon Technologies and memory chip makers Micron Technology and Western Digital will no longer supply Huawei in compliance with Trump’s order, which could delay adoption plans. of the 5G network worldwide.
Huawei is one of the leading companies in the world in the development of this new technology that should substantially increase the speed of internet connections and allow us to move towards the large-scale implementation of the internet of things.
Therefore, governments and companies around the world have reached agreements with the Chinese firm in recent months to be responsible for the installation of 5G systems (something that Trump himself has already criticized at the time, especially in the case of European countries), but for this Huawei needs the chips and components of its suppliers.
According to data compiled by Evercore, Huawei spends about 20,000 million dollars every year on electronic and telecommunications material, being precisely Intel, Xilinx and Broadcom some of its largest suppliers, so these companies will lose one of the most powerful customers of the industry.
“Preventing Huawei from doing business with companies in the US will not make the US stronger or safer, but will force it to lower-quality and more expensive alternatives, which will delay its adoption of the 5G network.” indicated the company last week when the Trump order was known. (EFEUSA)
