Huawei in talks w/ Aptoide and working on in-house ‘AppGallery’ as Play Store replacements

Ben Schoon | May 22 2019 - 9:30 am PT

Following the US blacklist of Huawei, the biggest issue facing the company is software. To offer its users a place to download Android apps following the loss of the Google Play Store, Huawei may bolster up its in-house “AppGallery” market, and it’s also apparently in talks with Aptoide as a replacement.

A report from Bloomberg earlier this week highlighted Huawei’s efforts on its in-house “AppGallery” marketplace. The company has been talking with carriers in Europe about spreading this app store further since its debut in 2018. This would reportedly mean carriers would pre-install App Gallery alongside the Play Store on their devices with a “very significant” revenue split from Huawei.

Huawei was also reportedly been in talks with developers about bringing their apps to the store, but details on that haven’t been confirmed. The AppGallery apparently has roughly 50 million users in Europe alone.

However, other options will certainly be needed if Huawei wants to replace the Google Play Store. According to one report (via XDA-Developers), Huawei is also in talks with Aptoide, one of the most popular Play Store replacements available today. With over 900,000 applications in its library, Aptoide has attracted 200 million users since it first launched.

Details are largely unclear on how Huawei hopes to partner with Aptoide, but the healthy collection of apps could certainly help the company’s devices should a deal not be resolved with Google and the US Government.

Of course, neither Huawei’s App Gallery or Aptoide host any Google applications, and presumably the US Government could have US-based apps removed from these stores as well.