HUAWEI Mate 30 series likely to launch without Western release date

We know for certain that the HUAWEI Mate 30 Pro and the vanilla Mate 30 will launch on September 19, 2019, at an event in Germany. However, it’s possible that HUAWEI will simply show off the device without revealing a Western release date, according to The Information.

Citing “employees familiar with the situation,” The Information says that HUAWEI could hold back release dates for Europe and other countries outside China while it figures out how to best respond to its lack of access to officially-licensed versions of Android.

Because Huawei is on the United States government’s so-called Entity List, the company cannot legally access Google services. While the Android operating system is open-source — which means anyone can use it — major aspects of the user experience depend on Google services, such as the Google Play Store, Gmail, Google Maps, etc. The HUAWEI Mate 30 Pro series would, as of now, be locked out from using those programs.

It would probably be a bad business move to release the new smartphones in the West without Google services intact, so HUAWEI is likely going to wait until it can figure out a solid plan for its future regarding smartphone operating systems.

Therefore, it could be quite a while before anyone in the West can actually buy a Mate 30 device — even though we’ll know pretty much everything there is to know about it after September 19.

This information is a rumor, though, so it’s very possible HUAWEI has a different plan in mind. However, it has gone on the record numerous times to say that it wants to continue releasing smartphones with the Android operating system and that it has no plans to release one running its own HarmonyOS.