Huge relief for Huawei, Google gets go-ahead to sell Android license

With US President Donald Trump providing reprieve to Huawei, less than a month after blacklisting the Chinese telecom giant, American tech titan Google can now work with it and continue to sell its Android license to the smartphone maker.

The move is also going to help its sub-brand HONOR.

"While it's unclear whether that extends to the 5G network technology that Huawei is developing, it most certainly applies to Google and Android.

"Under the terms of the previous ban (national security order), Google was barred from selling an Android license to Huawei, meaning its phones could use the base open-source code, but would not have access to the all-important Play Store and Google apps," the PC World reported on Saturday.

The previous restrictions meant Google was barred from selling an Android license to Huawei, meaning its phones could use the base open-source code, but would not have access to the all-important Play Store and Google apps.

A temporary licence was issued soon which allowed Google to support and update the Android OS currently running on existing Huawei devices.

However, it was affecting the development of future products. Huawei had reportedly said that it was working on its own OS and was reaching out to other Chinese brands such as OPPO, Vivo, and Xiaomi as partners.

Now that Google can continue to sell its Android license to Huawei, the company will need to decide whether to continue pursuing the project or stick with its EMUI OS, the PC World report added.

Beyond aiding Huawei, Trump's move will boost Google and other Huawei partners who invested significant time and resources into developing a relationship with Huawei to boost their own businesses through its business, according to the TechCrunch.

Huawei had earlier said that Google would lose millions of users if it turns away from Google's Android OS.