Huawei has partnered with TomTom, a deal that will see the Chinese smartphone giant replace Google Maps with TomTom maps in its smartphones.
Huawei is in a tight corner at the moment thanks to the US-China trade war. Huawei was blacklisted by the US government and this meant that the company was not free to trade with American companies. One of those companies was Google with its products and services including Gmail, YouTube, Google Maps etc.
The trade war has not been resolved and Huawei has decided to look for alternatives going forward. The company has partnered with TomTom to have its maps on Huawei smartphones. According to TomTom, the deal was concluded a while but they had not made it public until now.
TomTom is not well known in markets such as Kenya but the company is known for its GPS products. It is a software-focused company that is the perfect alternative for Google Maps for Huawei.
Huawei and TomTom have not provided any details on this deal but that is something we will know more of in the coming months.
Tight Spot
Huawei is finding new alternatives to stay on top of things as the company had a good 2019 that saw good sales numbers in the beginning of the year but things were not that great towards the end. The company missed its own targets and if it does not get back to its aggressive growth strategy this year, it may not sell as many smartphones this year as it did last.
In Kenya we are currently expecting the launch of the Huawei Nova 5T later this week. This looks to be an exciting device that will be competing with other mid-range smartphones available locally.