Huawei finds an alternative to Google Maps in new partnership with TomTom
Huawei is currently on the US government’s Entity List, and as such this means that doing business with US companies is a no-go. It also means that for now, Huawei will still not be able to access Google Play Services along with other Google services such as Google Maps.
We know that Huawei is looking for alternatives, and a report from Reuters has revealed that the company might have found it. Huawei and TomTom seem to have struck up a deal where the latter’s services and technologies will be used in Huawei’s phones and apps moving forwards.
This means that in terms of mapping applications, Huawei device owners will be able to use TomTom’s services in place of Google Maps. This is good news for Huawei as well as developing their own mapping application would no doubt take a while and could cost quite a bit of money, plus there’s no guarantee that it will be as good (see Apple Maps’ initial launch).
At least TomTom is quite a big name as far as navigation apps and services are concerned, so Huawei can rely on that. That being said, there are still plenty of other services that Huawei needs to find alternatives for. The company did reveal that they are working on what they’re calling Huawei Mobile Services which will be the answer to Google Play Services.
Source: Reuters