The ongoing saga between the United States and Huawei has taken a rather interesting turn. In a recent interview with Austrian newspaper Der Standard (paywall), country manager for the region, Fred Wangfei, said the Chinese firm has no plans to return to Google services even if the US decides to lift its ban.
Winfuture also reported on the same comments and confirms that there was no “wiggle room” to what Wangfei said.
If you are wondering why Huawei's whole messaging on their future re Android / Google is so chaotic: It's because they would prefer to not talk about this topic at all. Simply because they are pretty much in an impossible situation right now.
— Andreas Proschofsky (@suka_hiroaki) January 30, 2020
Huawei’s global team of higher ranking executives are yet to comment on Wangfei’s remarks, so it remains to be seen if he was simply showcasing some bravado or whether that is indeed the intention of the firm.
If it is the latter, it would make a lot of sense, especially as Huawei has revealed a new IoT-focused operating system, intensified its developer ecosystem plans and roped in TomTom to help with its mapping services in recent months.
As such Huawei one day splitting from Android completely was always something that we could see happening.
That said, during all of the back and forth between the US and Huawei this past year, locally the firm’s team has stated time and time again that it has no desire to leave the Android ecosystem, and that it was simply working on a “Plan B” in the interim.
If Wangfei’s comments are indeed true, it looks like Plan B has become Plan A.