Huawei, the world’s second-largest smartphone maker, has reportedly sent out emails inviting programmers to publish their apps on AppGallery, a third-party app market place owned by Huawei.
In a leaked email published on XDA Developer, an online app developer community, the Shenzhen-based company said it would like to “invite” app developers to publish on AppGallery, which it says has 270 million monthly active users.
Huawei’s invitation to overseas app developers came after Google said it would stop providing some of its services, including Google Play, on Huawei’s new devices.
Executives of the Chinese tech giant previously said that there is a backup plan and that Huawei could launch its own smartphone operating system (OS) in a few months. Huawei has also reportedly registered several trademarks for its OS in multiple countries.
Despite claiming to be ready to keep business going as usual under the US ban, which effectively locks it out of US products and services, the company has lowered its smartphone sales target.
Huawei had vowed to topple Samsung as the world’s largest smartphone maker by the end of this year, but now it’s putting that goal on hold.
“If there’s no accident, we would become the largest by the end of the year. But now it might take longer,” said Shao Yang, chief strategy officer of Huawei Consumer Business Group at the CES Asia technology show in Shanghai today, according to local news portal the Paper.