Huawei Skirts Around Blacklist, To Release Smartphone With Google Play Services

Huawei has found a way to release a smartphone with Google Play Services running on it to Western territories – in the form of an old, but refreshed device.

Huawei is running a promotional campaign involving a new smartphone with Google Play Services installed, Pocket-Lint reported. That smartphone is the P30 Pro New Edition, and it will be coming to Germany in a couple of weeks on May 15.

The promotional campaign, which can be seen via Huawei Germany's website (first reported by MySmartPrice), is done in partnership with carriers Vodafone and Otelo. The campaign requires consumers to purchase a Huawei-brand handset in order to get a low-end Huawei-brand tablet for free.

Here's how the campaign works. Those who purchase a P30, P30 Pro or a P30 Lite New Edition between May 1 and June 4 are eligible to join and get a free Huawei Tablet T3 10. The campaign states that those who buy the P30 Pro New Edition between May 15 and June 4 will also be eligible to join and get the free tablet device.

The campaign mechanics indicate that the new device will start arriving in Germany on May 15. This might be good news for those who've been longing to get a new Huawei device that has Google Play Services installed in it.

Does it really have Google Play Services?

This isn't the first time Huawei released a device that has Google's Play Services while still being included in the U.S. Entity List.

As mentioned above, Huawei has a device called the P30 Lite New Edition. This device is a refreshed version of the P30 Lite, which was released before the company was put in the U.S. Entity List in May of 2019.

Huawei's inclusion in the Entity List meant that it will not be able to release new handsets with Google's Play Services powering it. The company was able to release a new handset with that feature simply by releasing a refreshed version of a device that was released prior to the blacklisting. This device is the P30 Lite New Edition.

Now, it appears that Huawei is doing the same thing again with the P30 Pro New Edition. By releasing a refreshed version of the P30 Pro, the Chinese tech giant might be able to win back the consumers it lost to other brands when it lost Google's Play Services.