• Huawei’s next major flagship phone, the Huawei P40, will reportedly arrive in March 2020 without Google’s mobile services.
  • Huawei consumer boss Richard Yu told French tech publication Frandroid that the Chinese tech firm will launch the P40 in Paris next year.
  • The phone will run Huawei’s alternative app store and accompanying services, known as Huawei Mobile Services, but won’t come with Google’s Play Store or Google’s most popular apps.
  • Huawei has been unable to license full-fat Android with accompanying Google services thanks to the ongoing US-China trade war.
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Huawei’s next major flagship phone and iPhone killer, the P40, will reportedly arrive in March 2020 without any Google services.

That’s according to an interview given by Huawei executive Richard Yu to French tech publication Frandroid. We saw the news via Mashable.

According to Frandroid, the Huawei P40 will launch in Paris in March 2020, in keeping with the firm’s usual timeline for updates to its high-end P series of phones.

Yu doesn’t explicitly state that the P40 won’t run Google services, but does say the phone will come equipped with Huawei Mobile Services, which is effectively a replacement.

Google Mobile Services is the term for Google's licensed suite of services to accompany the Android OS.

It includes the Play Store, some of Google's most popular apps, and accompanying APIs to help functionality.

Although Android is free for mobile manufacturers to install on devices, they pay an additional fee to layer Google Mobile Services on top. Most popular Android phones come equipped with this extra Google software, and it's why many phones come with Gmail, YouTube, Maps, and other core apps.

But that licensed, full-fat version of Android has been unavailable to Huawei since May this year thanks to a US trade ban.

In September, Huawei launched its first high-end Android phone without Google services, the Mate 30. At that launch, Yu appealed to developers to build apps for its ecosystem.

After the Mate 30, the P40 will be Huawei's second flagship lacking Google services.

Separately, Huawei is working on an alternative underlying mobile operating system to Android, called HarmonyOS. Yu told Frandroid that the new OS won't be ready in time for the P40. Instead, the firm will run on Android 10 - just the version without Google apps.