The Definitive Guide to Living in the Capital , Cairo , Egypt

Featured image via 9to5Google

The internet is figuratively exploding with news about Google recently limiting Huawei’s access to its Android operating system. A source told Reuters that Google’s parent company, Alphabet, has suspended all business with Huawei that requires the transfer of hardware, software and technical services, except those publicly available via open source licensing. To quote the source, “Huawei will only be able to use the public version of Android and will not be able to get access to proprietary apps and services from Google.”

What does this decision entail? Well, first of all, new Huawei smartphones will lose access to Google apps, such as Gmail, Chrome, and YouTube, and the American multinational will no longer provide them with any technical support. For current users, the Google spokesperson said, “Google Play and the security protections from Google Play Protect will continue to function on existing Huawei devices.”

This huge debacle ignited after the Trump administration added Huawei Technologies Co Ltd to a trade blacklist, immediately enacting restrictions that will make it extremely difficult for the company to do business with U.S. counterparts. The effect of this decision is rapidly spreading, as some countries are now banning Huawei to develop their 5G mobile networks, according to Al Jazeera English.

You can learn more about the expected impact of the ban on Apple sales, and the trade war between Beijing and Washington in Al Jazeera’s conversation with Einar Tangen, a political analyst who advises the Chinese government on economic and development issues. 

“How will all this affect Egypt?” is the first question that is probably on a lot of our minds right now. Since the event is still new, and projections are still being studied, we decided to do some speculation. We took a look at StatCounter, a web traffic analysis tool founded in 1999, and based on our findings, we think that Egyptians may be in hot water.

The site’s study of the mobile operating system market shares in Egypt shows that Android dominates 85.64% of the market with iOS users at only 13.4%. It is no state secret that Huawei, the world’s second-largest smartphone producer after Samsung, is a very popular brand here in Egypt. Therefore, if Huawei goes down, then so will a large portion of Egyptian Android users.  Again, this is purely conjecture; who knows what will be the actual impact or reality of this situation – better or worse?!