Huawei's AppStore coming to Europe Q1 2018 along with video service

HUAWEI has revealed that it will launch its AppStore in Europe early next year, making it the first market to receive the service outside of China. The news was announced at HUAWEI’s Eco-Connect Europe event in Berlin last week, where HUAWEI also discussed plans to “empower the digital transformation of European businesses.”

This is a service similar to Samsung’s Galaxy Apps store and would come pre-installed on HUAWEI and HONOR-branded smartphones beginning Q1, 2017. HUAWEI said it is working with “15 key app and game developers” to help launch the app store (seemingly to create exclusive products for the service), and that it will arrive alongside a HUAWEI-branded video service. Apparently, this will be ad-free and cover global and local content, but more specific details weren’t discussed.

In a press release, HUAWEI said that it is striving to create an open digital platform to “inspire cross-industry innovation,” and “bring clear value to European communities and enterprises.” The AppStore and video service’s European rollout will form only part of this initiative.

Meanwhile, HUAWEI’s Developers website currently states that more than “210 million end users have downloaded apps 45 billion times from the HUAWEI app store.” HUAWEI’s smartphone Themes, which act as a way to customize the user interface of its devices, are a core part of this service.