A Turkish telecom firm has announced a confirmed deal with Chinese tech giant Huawei for its app infrastructure. The acquisition was labeled as the first trade deal that Huawei engaged in outside of China in the use of its system.
The Huawei Mobile Services (HMS) would start operations with Turkish telecom firm Turkcell. The company would provide an app store and cloud services to the telecom's users even after the US discouraged states to engage in business with Huawei's technological equipment.
At a news conference last Wednesday, Turkcell's chief executive officer (CEO) Murat Erkan claimed that his company wants to sell a total of one million HMS-enabled Huawei mobile phones by the end of the first quarter of 2020 and by the end of 2021.
The report also revealed that Turkcell encompasses mobile software infrastructure that was established by Alphabet's GOOGL.O Google and Apple Inc.'s AAPL.O.
According to the country manager at Huawei Turkey Consumer Electronics Group Seth Wang, hundreds of software engineers developed the HMS infrastructure for Turkish use.
At the news conference, there are about 4.6 million mobile users in Turkey who also navigate with a Huawei ID.
The trade deal was instituted despite Washington's warning about countries engaging the services of Huawei due to security reasons. The US itself has banned US firms from acquiring the same services from Huawei and claimed that the Chinese tech giant poses a national security risk. It claimed that its infrastructure may be utilized by spies from Beijing despite the company denying the allegations and with the absence of substantial evidence.
According to the New York Times, the US restrictions against Huawei may be instituted again after the country waived the restriction in 2019. The report claimed that the reversal would result in a crackdown on exports to the company.
It was also revealed that the trade restriction would cause US companies a challenge in replacing the services that Huawei already offers. The Defense Secretary to the US Mark Esper also announced that the matter would be discussed in a meeting scheduled for next week.
It was further revealed that a separate high-level meeting would also be conducted come February 28, 2020, where US officials would decide to push through with the ban against Huawei particularly those concerning technological exports.
Last Wednesday, the US Commerce Department claimed that it continuously reviews and updates its export controls. It was discussed that the department seeks to mitigate the challenges that come with accelerating technology diffusion and innovation - services that Huawei offers to US companies.
