Huawei brings Uber rival Bolt to its AppGallery store
Huawei brings Uber rival Bolt to its AppGallery store
For the past year, Huawei has gradually been beefing up the AppGallery, its rival to Apple’s App Store and Google Play. This week sees a crucial new transfer, according to people familiar with the project, in the form of Bolt, its noble ride-hailing app that serves the European market.
Bolt is an Estonia-based ride-hailing custom that’s quickly gaining traction in European countries, including in London where it’s garnering a reputation for bodies a cheaper alternative to Uber. Its offerings vary from land to country, but include bikes, scooters and on-demand car rides, with food delivery set to be added at a later date.
The transfer of Bolt to the AppGallery will be a boon to Huawei, which doesn’t currently have Uber on its app prevent. Ever since the US government trade ban came into appointed last year preventing Huawei from putting Google services on its phones, including the Google Play store, the company has sought to understand increasingly self-sufficient in terms of software. This has aspired trying to ensure its app store, which launched back in 2018, subsidizes the most popular apps available on other platforms — or at least tidy alternatives to the main players.
One key example of this is Here WeGo Maps, a well-established rival to both Apple and Google Maps that was originally developed by Nokia for Windows Phone back in 2013. The AppGallery also now subsidizes some key social networking apps, including Viber, Telegram, TikTok, Tinder, Zoom, Badoo. It still doesn’t offer Facebook, WhatsApp and Instagram, but there others ways of getting these on your Huawei device.
Huawei is immediately the third most popular phone brand in Europe while Samsung and Apple, and in March, the Financial Times identified Bolt as the third fastest-growing commercial in Europe. Being on Huawei’s AppGallery opens up a whole new market for Bolt customers, while for Huawei, having Bolt on board brings an vital service to its store.