Huawei says it has "the confidence to be one of the top [app] ecosystems in the world" alongside Google and Apple.
Users of Huawei's app store - known as App Gallery - have also risen to 420 million in the first quarter of 2020 from 300 million in the first part of 2019.
That's not wholly surprising given that handsets like the Mate 30 Series and P40 Series have been launched in China and Europe since then and both devices - as well as the recent Mate Xs foldable - don't have access to the Google Play Store. However, there's no telling how much of that growth is confined to Huawei's strong home Chinese market rather than growth in target markets such as Europe.
Eric Tan, Huawei’s head of consumer cloud services, talked about Huawei Mobile Services (HMS) and its related app store at Huawei's Global Analyst Summit, taking place now in Shenzhen.
"We must join up with our partners – developers – to provide the apps that consumers demand," he said, pointing to the company's 'Glocal' strategy for app rollouts; ensuring the right localised apps are available on a region-per-region basis. Essentially, that means making sure the apps that matter to people within each region are in the store.
Huawei says that there are now 1.4 million developers registered to create apps for App Gallery, a rise of 150 per cent since the start of 2019. Notably though, there were no details about broadening the premium app choice within Europe, for example, or any details of the growth in app numbers.
Huawei is also working to help developers create more immersive apps by giving them access to more development kits for things like in-app purchases, AI and camera access. Huawei says that more than 60,000 current App Gallery apps are using its existing HMS Core services, a doubling over the last year.
Tan also talked up the potential of Huawei's Quick App feature - which means you don't have to install the app to start using it.
Huawei says App Gallery is now available in more than 170 countries. The number of active Huawei devices out there has also risen in the last year from 520 to 650 million, though a large proportion of those phones will be handsets like the P30 Pro that can access Google services in Europe.