Chinese telecommunications firm Huawei released its new phones, the Mate 30 and Mate 30 Pro, on Thursday. They don’t exactly suggest a company that wants to be a global leader in telecommunications services.
Thanks to the Trump administration’s wise export restrictions against the company, the new phones are not compatible with Google’s Android software and do not provide access to Google’s App store. That means they have very limited utility for the modern smartphone user.
Huawei says that it has replaced Google software’s with its own app system and that this will incentivize app manufacturers to develop versions for Huawei. But this is delusional. None of the most popular apps appear to be available on these new phones. And the reason that people buy Android-based phones in the first place is so that they can access a vast marketplace of unique, diversified, and constantly updating app services.
Huawei is kidding itself if it thinks its apps will match user expectations. Indeed, the company’s delusion speaks perfectly to the ultimate flaw of the Chinese communist system that Huawei directly serves through covert intelligence activity — namely, its assumption that a centrally planned economy and service model can produce the best outcomes. It can’t.
Huawei might survive in its domestic Chinese market but only because consumers there are blocked by the Great Firewall and barred by law from using Google products. But outside of China, Huawei has a big problem.
