Huawei's AppGallery platform is certainly powering up in 2020 - the app store has announced a huge number of partners and has a record number of developers making new apps for the platform.
The AppGallery has welcomed brands such as TomTom, Bolt, Emirates, Sberbank and Kumu to the store this year, with more than 1.8 million developers globally now part of the Huawei Mobile Services (HMS) ecosystem. Huawei is committed to building a reliable, fair, and open mobile ecosystem to provide a diversified and innovative experience for users.
More than 96,000 applications have so far been integrated with HMS Core worldwide.
AppGallery has had a record number of users during 2020 - a staggering 490 million in over 170 countries and regions. Within the first half of 2020, user app downloads reached 261 billion and it's clearly now one of the top three mobile ecosystems.
During a keynote speech at the Huawei Developer Conference 2020, Mr Wang Yanmin, President of Global Partnerships and Eco-Development at Huawei Consumer Business Group highlighted AppGallery's 2020 achievements:
"Despite increasing challenges, AppGallery and the Huawei Mobile Services (HMS) ecosystem has continued to show progress this year, all thanks to our global partners.
"With this strong support and recognition, we will continue to invest in the ecosystem as we build one of the top three app distribution platforms in the world. We are confident that as we continue to work closely with our partners, we can help them to grow and achieve their business goals, especially for those locally popular names who are looking to expand into other global markets," said Mr Wang Yanmin.
Global + Local approach
AppGallery's big ongoing focus is around a 'glocal' approach (Global + Local), catering for the diverse needs of users across different countries and regions. Though this Huawei is able to provide users with relevant apps and services - focusing on popular local apps.
For example, in the Middle East and Africa, local messaging app Imo and Noon Shopping are both available on AppGallery. In Europe, bank BBVA and online shopping app Allegro are both newcomers to AppGallery.
Partners such as Bolt, Deezer, Foodpanda, TomTom Go Navigation, Line, Qwant and Telegram have joined AppGallery with this approach, making things more convenient for users. In Latin America, bank Bancolombia and leading e-Commerce marketplace Linio are on the platform. In Asia Pacific, popular travel booking app Agoda and e-commerce sites Lazada are both on AppGallery.
The largest bank in Russia - Sberbank - has teamed up with AppGallery to launch its own contactless payment service supported by HMS. Within 11 days, over 21 million users have downloaded the app.
Grabjobs, a leading recruitment platform in Asia, is using its app to conduct in-app recruitment and interviews. Plus, there are 3D facial recognition payments via PayBy, supported by Huawei's Security kit.
How Huawei is helping AppGallery developers
Huawei is also helping developers have more exposure for their new apps. Navigation leader TomTom has both of its popular navigation apps TomTom Go Navigation and TomTom AmiGO listed on AppGallery and had a 22 times uplift in downloads.
Ride-hailing and escooter app Bolt saw an increase of 136 times downloads in European and Africa downloads from week one to week thirteen.
Huawei also has extensive support in assisting developers to explore business opportunities in China and other global markets by providing relevant consulting services, localisation and integration, marketing and campaign services.
A spokesperson from newly joined partner Emirates said: "It’s our pleasure to build a collaboration with Huawei in order to provide the best possible customer experience…The engaging tools that are available on the Huawei AppGallery can help us create closer bonds and experiences with more customers, especially in China, which is a significant market for us.
"The next phase of our collaboration will roll out soon and is aimed at benefitting passengers at every step of their journey, from trip planning to arrive at their destination.” Since last year, Huawei has helped over 700 partners enter the Chinese market.
Huawei also says it is building three global ecosystem cooperation labs in Russia, Poland, and Germany to help test, certify and enable increasing numbers of apps. There will also be five global developer service centres in Romania, Malaysia, Egypt, Mexico, and Russia.
Huawei says it will always welcome global developers to join the HMS ecosystem to bring a better, smarter app experience to global and local consumers.