Honor reportedly developing new line of phones with Google services

Huawei and Honor have been unable to create new smartphones with Google services since mid-2019. But Honor has since become an independent brand and soon it could revive its relationship with Google.

Honor phones with Google services are coming soon

Russian newspaper Kommersant (via GSMArena) claims Honor is working on a new line of phones that runs Google services as standard. The aim is to announce and release them in the spring.

Existing Honor smartphones will continue to offer access to the HMS ecosystem and App Gallery, per two sources familiar with the situation, but future Honor devices will permanently move back to Google’s platform.

This is going to further limit the availability of Huawei’s alternative app ecosystem. After all, Huawei itself continues to decline in popularity outside of China and no other brands have expressed interest in supporting HMS.

These changes are predicted to take effect in time for the Honor 40 and Honor X11/X20 launches. Whether there are plans to add support for Google to Honor phones that don’t support the ecosystem is unclear, but such a move would certainly broaden their appeal in Western markets.

Honor and Google haven’t commented on the potential partnership, but the news comes less than six weeks after Honor entered talks with Qualcomm about a potential chip supply deal.