Huawei has added Bolt, the ride sharing app, to the Huawei App Gallery app store in Europe.
The app is now live on App Gallery and provides a viable alternative to Uber, which is not available there to download. Bolt provides a ride sharing service akin to Uber’s, and also owns an e-scooter fleet for rental in cities.
This could prove useful for Huawei phones owners if Bolt’s scooters come to their city following the news that rented electric scooters will be technically legal in the UK from tomorrow.
It comes shortly after Huawei announced that music streaming service Deezer is officially on the European App Gallery as an alternative to Spotify.
Huawei also said that it was in talks to bring the Bolt Food app to the App Gallery as an alternative to absent apps Uber Eats, Just Eat and Deliveroo.
Since Huawei’s US trade ban the company has set about adding and promoting well-known Western apps to its App Gallery in an attempt to convince phone buyers that they don’t need an Android phone with the Google Play Store installed. New Huawei phones released since May 2019 cannot access the Play Store or even run Google services properly.
While the App Gallery is a strong app store in Huawei’s native China, for European consumers the lack of Google apps and other popular apps is reminiscent of the struggles Windows Phone used to have. That said, App Gallery has BBC News, Snapchat, Telegram, TikTok, Zoom, Skyscanner, Tinder Deezer and Bolt.
But to some industry critics ( us included to an extent) and potential buyers, the lack of all compatibility with Google services and apps is a turn off. Also, in lacking Facebook, Messenger, Instagram, WhatsApp, Twitter and Spotify and many other highly popular apps, the App Gallery still faces a battle to either win over customers with alternative apps or try and forge distribution deals with the apps it lacks.
Author: Henry Burrell, Phones Editor
Henry is Tech Advisor’s Phones Editor, ensuring he and the team covers and reviews every smartphone worth knowing about for readers and viewers all over the world. He spends a lot of time moving between different handsets and shouting at WhatsApp to support multiple devices at once.