Huawei is requesting that some developers publish their apps on ‘AppGallery’ store

Ben Schoon | Jun 10 2019 - 11:15 am PT

It’s still unclear what’s going to happen to Huawei’s mobile devices following the company’s addition to the US Commerce Department Entity list. One recent report pointed to Huawei using its own AppGallery market in place of the Google Play Store, and now it looks like the company is sending requests to some developers to bring their apps to that store.

Speaking with XDA-Developers, a “trusted” developer showed an email from Huawei which requested that the app be published in the AppGallery store. The email explains that over 350 million devices have been shipped by Huawei in just the last two years, with “about half” being in Western markets such as Europe. All of those devices are pre-loaded AppGallery, meaning Huawei is granting developers access to “270 million monthly active users.”

The company goes on to explain that it would assist the developer in bringing the app to the AppGallery, also touting 560,000 developers in the community.

Subject: [OFFICIAL] Invitation to join Huawei AppGallery

Cher XXX team,

In the last 2 years, Huawei shipped over 350M phones, about half of them in western markets.

All Huawei phones have our official AppStore “AppGallery” preloaded globally, with 270 million monthly active users.

We realized that your great Android App XXX is not yet published in our AppGallery.

In order to guarantee a smooth usage of your App for our users, Huawei is committed to provide you with full support, to help you publish your App into AppGallery.

We would therefore like to invite you to join our 560k developers community for free, in our Huawei Developer portal.

This email is notable because it lines up with a report from Bloomberg last month. Huawei has been reportedly working up its efforts with AppGallery to make it a viable alternative to the Play Store, and that report included reaching out to developers to bring more apps into the marketplace. It’s unclear if Huawei was doing this same thing before the ban was enacted, though.