Huawei has signed a deal with Dutch navigation and digital mapping company, TomTom that will see the former install their maps and services apps to the future Android devices.
According to a TomTom spokesperson who spoke to Reuters, the deal was “closed some time ago,” but the Chinese company did not disclose the news to the public.
The deal opens doors for Huawei to use TomTom’s maps, traffic information, and navigation software in developing apps for its smartphones.
Since the US government added Huawei together with dozens of its affiliates on the Entity List, the company has been forced to seek alternative ways as the ban meant the company could not trade freely with many of its allies based in the US.
The company’s most affected business has been its smartphone business due to its dependence on Google’s Android ecosystem.
Since the ban came into effect, Huawei has been forced to look for Google Mobile Services alternatives. The company announced its new Operating System but denied it was not meant to replace Android, at least not yet and unless otherwise.
The company has also been lobbying developers to bring their apps to App Gallery, Huawei’s Google Play Store alternative. Last year in August, Huawei was reportedly working on a Google Maps alternative dubbed Map Kit that was touted to support real-time traffic as well as AR features.
Since the ban, Huawei has used a little trick of launching iterations to its Google certified devices launched earlier. Part of these devices includes Huawei P30 Lite New Edition and the Huawei Y9s, which have been introduced in markets like Kenya, which care about the availability of Google apps.
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