Huawei's EMUI 10.1 update shows Chinese mobile giant hunkering down for the long haul without Google wares Huawei has confirmed the rollout map for its EMUI 10.1 software, which introduces several new features including the firm's in-house Siri alternative, Celia. EMUI 10.1 first launched in March, with the release of the Huawei P40 flagship series. Starting in June, the Chinese mobile giant will start sending it out to older …
Google already didn't have China. Pretty much every Google service is blocked in China, meaning a lot of the code Huawei is rolling out is based on code they've already written for China, one of the reasons they've managed the release so fast. Whether this builds into a competitor for Google will probably depend a lot on whether other manufacturers get the ability to use the software--Huawei on its own isn't an Apple, and probably wouldn't manage to carve a massive chunk of the market on its own hardware and software. By licensing HMS to other manufacturers though, there's a chance.
But why would Huawei want to license it to other companies, rather than keeping it an exclusive to help sell their hardware?
Phones sold in China haven't used Google services for years already and that internal market has already built up its alternatives. Where Huawei has an advantage is if they are the only Chinese company able to compete outside of China. If they license their stuff they'll have to compete in a race to the bottom with an army of no name Chinese companies willing to sell at near zero margins.
There are two approaches Huawei could take related to their licensing. First, they could do what you suggest, and use their non-Googled services framework to market their devices. This probably won't work very well--if anything in their framework breaks compatibility with Google's, people will notice and associate it negatively with their marketing. People who dislike Google may be attracted, but many won't want to have Huawei collect the data they worry about Google collecting. Meanwhile, a lot of the public won't know what the services framework is and will ignore the advertising.
The second approach is to market the services framework to other manufacturers. These manufacturers are already competing with Huawei using Google services, and some of them (Xiaomi, Oppo, and Realme, for instance) are doing rather well at it. If some of these companies used Huawei's code instead, Huawei would have more control over competitors, would be able to license the code for a fee, might force Google to maintain compatibility with it, etc. This would be relatively invisible to most users, but Huawei could gain market power if they succeeded in convincing other companies to adopt it. I think that would be somewhat difficult, but more likely to produce benefits to Huawei than keeping it exclusive.
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