Huawei App gallery: Can it outlive Google Play Store?

Are  you a Huawei P40 user and unable to access play store on your phone? Well, this is the new norm for the Huawei phone users. People with Huawei phones including Huawei P40 series, Mate 30 Pro and many more have to get comfortable with the Huawei’s App gallery rather than Google Play Store to download apps.
This all happened when the Trump Administration called for the Huawei ban after Huawei was allegedly accused of illegal business practices. In May 2019, US President Donald Trump announced that Huawei along with several other Chinese companies on Entity list would not be allowed to trade with any organisation in the US.
According to an article contained on Android Authority website, this led to Huawei losing it ties with companies like Google, Qualcomm and Intel and many others. To cope up with this sudden outset, Huawei made headlines that it has started its own app gallery.
Although Huawei lost access to Google Mobile Services (GMS) it didn’t stop the company from launching new devices. To ensure its phones have an uninterrupted supply of apps, it came up with its own app store called Huawei App Gallery.
However, according to tech guru, Mr  Remmegious Ssewankambo, the executive director at Techjaja,  the Huawei App Gallery  co-existed with the Google Play store for a long time. It only became more pronounced after Google banned Huawei from using its Google Mobile Services that includes the Play Store.
Meanwhile, according to a tech website Android Authority, “Huawei is spending millions of dollars convincing other app developers to port their products in app gallery and more are added every day.”
In an article contained on a website PC world, Huawei claims to have over 45,000 apps and has over 390 million monthly active users worldwide.
What is new about the App gallery?
The App gallery, whose genesis was led due to the Huawei ban is still in its nascent stage to achieve a good shape. A number of tech experts says the App gallery still needs much more apps to attract users.
According to Mr Ssewankambo, Huawei’s app gallery can still compete because Android being an open operating system allows for the side loading of mobile apps outside the official Play store.
 However, he says, “I have doubts if Huawei is ditching Android for good, because in favour of its Harmony Operating System (OS) might not be as compelling as Android, especially when it comes to luring app developers to develop native apps for its new operating system.”
“Many players like Mozilla, Samsung, Microsoft among others have failed in this regard to challenge the current Android and iOS duopoly with a new mobile operating system,” he adds.
According to an app gallery review article on Android Authority, many popular apps like Facebook, Netflix, and WhatsApp aren’t available on the app gallery store. Other work essentials like zoom that is been widely used now are notable absences.
 However, the article reads that Huawei has a trick for some of these apps that are not hosted on its store but are available in APK (Android Application Package) from official sources. “App Gallery links out to official websites where you can grab and install the APK manually. 
Similarly, Huawei is also trying to have Google apps. Other Apps like Google Maps, Translate, and Drive are also accessible in web page format via a search in the App Gallery.
Huawei also has Phone Clone application, where one can copy many apps from their old phone.

Drawbacks
However, tech experts say app discovery is still the biggest problem with the App Gallery and this problem needs to be addressed. 
“Even if Huawei manages to bring more major developers on board, it will be a wasted effort if users can’t discover these apps on their own,” read the app gallery review article.
According to Mr Ssewankambo, Huawei’s app gallery doesn’t have as many apps as the Play Store, not just in terms of quantity but quality as well.
“This app gallery is solely managed by Huawei not Google. The lack of Google Mobile Services, which many app developers rely on to power their apps means Huawei’s gallery apps must rely on third-party alternatives that might not be as advanced as Google’s own system-level services,” he says.