Honor 50 Smartphone Series to be Equipped with Google Mobile Services, Signaling Restart of Cooperation

On Monday evening, the official overseas social media platform of Chinese smartphone maker Honor announced that it has succeeded in securing cooperation with several suppliers. Critically, the Honor 50 series will be equipped with Google Mobile Services (GMS), which will provide a more comprehensive application environment and mobile experience to the firm’s customers.

GMS mainly refers to Google Maps, Gmail, YouTube, the Chrome web browser and Google Play. Overseas, GMS is necessary for Android mobile phone users to use Google products and services.

At the beginning of this year, Honor said that it was negotiating with Google and hoped to resume its cooperative relationship with Google. A few months ago, it was reported that Honor was undergoing Google’s security review and compatibility test to ensure that GMS applications could run on its devices.

After being separated from technology giant Huawei at the end of last year, Honor faced great challenges in its supply chain, causing problems such as the slow release of new products and poor market feedback. At that time, the firm’s market share dipped as low as 3%. In June this year, the Honor 50 Series was launched in the domestic market, which greatly promoted the company’s market share. At the end of September, the company’s domestic market share had risen to 16.2%, close to its highest ever level of 16.7%.

SEE ALSO: Honor CEO Zhao Ming: Domestic Market Share Has Risen to 16.2%

Zhao Ming, CEO of Honor, said that the company has gradually resumed its business operations in more than 50 countries around the world, and that more products will be listed in the future. The firm’s mobile phones and tablets will also support GMS.

In September, Honor announced the expansion of its partnership with Microsoft. It will adopt AI speech and AI translation services based on Microsoft Azure. These services will be used to support Honor’s Smart Assistant YOYO, collaborative office, smart travel, life services, smart translation and other applications.