Huawei Technologies, a Chinese communications technology giant, has recently announced that its users will be able to download bitcoin wallets through the company’s app store AppGallery, which will be pre-installed on all new Huawei and Honor smartphones.
The Shenzhen-based company has reportedly teamed up with BTC.com to add the firm’s bitcoin wallet to AppGallery. Per Alejandro de la Torre, BTC.com’s vice president of business operations, the BTC.com wallet is the first cryptocurrency-related app Huawei will include in its app store.
The smartphone maker’s app store is set to be rolled out to older devices in the coming months. The move will notably affect Chinese users, where Huawei has a market share of about 20.4 percent. Last year, the firm shipped 90.9 million smartphones into the Chinese market.
Speaking to Bloomberg, de la Torre stated:
“It’s a good opportunity to tap into the Chinese market. The use of cashless payments with apps is very big and the traditional banking system is lacking, so there’s a good use case for crypto payments to grow there.”
Access to cryptocurrency-related apps is limited in China, as the country’s government blocks Google’s app store Google Play, and some of Apple’s App Store. Last year, Chinese authorities shut down cryptocurrency exchanges and banned initial coin offerings (ICOs) from the country. Despite the crackdown, owning cryptocurrencies isn’t illegal.
Mobile payments are extremely popular in China, with companies like Alibaba’s Ant Financial and JD Finance providing users digital payments and lending services. Huawei, the world’s second largest phone manufacturer, is also planning to develop a smartphone that will support blockchain-based decentralized applications (DApps).
Jaime Gonzalo, vice president of Huawei Mobile Services, said in a statement:
“From our leadership position in China, the tip of the spear of mobile payments, we expect to see massive growth in global cryptocurrency adoption habits in the near future.”
BTC.com is owned by cryptocurrency mining hardware manufacturer Bitmain, which also owns the world’s largest bitcoin mining pool. The company’s bitcoin wallet also supports bitcoin cash (BCH).
As covered, Huawei has last month announced it will launch a Blockchain-as-a-Service (BaaS) platform powered by Hyperledger Fabric. Per the company, the platform is “a high-performance, high-availability, and high-security blockchain technology platform”
