Despite various efforts by Huawei to try and get back to business with American companies, there could now be even more for them to worry about. It is already out there that the temporary general licence that allowed the Chinese firm to conduct limited business with U.S. firms lapsed on August 13th.

The licence was originally given to give rural American telecom companies time to work out best alternatives to Huawei’s infrastructure. However, this was also used to keep Google’s apps and services alive on Huawei smartphones that were launched before the May 2019 ban. 

It also allowed Google to provide Android software and security updates to older devices.

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With the licence expired now, this means the end of software updates for those smartphones. As you can imagine, this is expected to be a huge blow for Huawei that had been using the licence to its advantage. We saw Huawei trying to renew its previously launched phones so they can still get devices with Google services.

Luckily, not all smartphones from the company should get affected by this latest development. Only those that still have Google Mobile Services (GMS) are the ones holding on by a thread. Various devices, including 2019’s Huawei P30 lineup, are expected to stop getting software or security updates from here onwards.

Those released after the trade ban will not be affected. This is because they use an open-source version of Android and receive updates directly from Huawei instead of Google.

Until both Google and Huawei find another option, owners of these smartphones will have to stay in the dark for now.