Huawei: Will European market offer solutions amid U.S. pressure?

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Europe

02:51

At a news conference held in Huawei's Cybersecurity Center in Brussels on Tuesday, Huawei's Chief Representative to the EU Institutions Abraham Liu stressed it was treated unfairly by the U.S.

"Huawei has been respecting all applicable laws and regulations. Now Huawei is becoming the victim of the bullying by the U.S. administration. This is not just an attack against Huawei. It is an attack on the liberal, rules-based order," said Liu.

But the company would not be the only victim of the trade bully. The users, especially for the hundreds of thousands of potential users' for 5G could also be affected.

“Huawei's 5G solution is not just the best on the market. But it is to a large extent a European product, and it's tailor-made for Europe's needs,” Liu noted.

Liu also praised Europe's coordinated approach to 5G, for instance, in developing comprehensive laws like GDPR (General Data Protection Regulation).

One of Huawei's experience centers in Germany. /Xinhua Photo

Fighting its way in the storm, Huawei is pressing ahead with its global ambitions. The company has unveiled its latest smartphone in London, the HONOR 20 series.

“What Huawei does really well is to provide specifications for pretty affordable price points,” Joshua Vergara, a tech blogger from the UK told CGTN.

He added that if the HONOR 20 series is targeting users of his age or younger, offering an affordable price really matters. Shipping a record 59 million phones in the first quarter of 2019 made Huawei the world's biggest smartphone producer.

Zach Emmanuel, an analyst at Britain's Mintel consumer technology told CGTN that in the UK alone, Huawei's share has increased from two percent in 2018 to seven percent in 2019, according to Mintel, a research firm.

He added that Huawei's growth across the globe has really done well.

Google ban

But Google's move on Tuesday may complicate things. As part of the U.S. sanctions on Huawei, Google has been forced to stop offering its apps to future Huawei smartphones.

Huawei responded that it 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.”

This ban does not mean that Huawei has lost its access to Android because the system is open-source and available to everyone. It's only the Google part of the Android is about to be gone.

Huawei said Tuesday that it was working with Google to respond to trade restrictions imposed by the U.S.

Huawei's founder and CEO Ren Zhengfei emphasized on Tuesday that Huawei is a commercial company, hence buying its products depends on consumers' preference. He said that it's wrong to connect Huawei's products with politics.