Huawei’s AppGallery to feature more South African-made apps

Huawei’s AppGallery may become a lot more useful for South Africans. The company on Monday announced that it will soon populate its third-party app store with apps from South African developers.

Like Google Play Store, Huawei’s AppGallery is a repository for apps that users on Huawei devices can download. The company curates and screens these apps before they’re accepted.

“Huawei is committed to catering to the needs of South African consumers, but we also know that we do not have all the answers. For this reason, we aim to work closely with South African developers so that we can give our users everything that they need and want from their devices,” said Huawei SA’s CTO Akhram Mohamed.

“At the same time, we also hope to create an open ecosystem for local developers by offering a simple and secure environment for them to upload content.”

The company also remarked that it hopes to populate the AppGallery with software that addresses South African concerns like “load shedding or safety”.

While shoving an additional app store on a smartphone seems like a daft idea, it’s worth noting that allowing developers to craft apps for its devices may open up a future that doesn’t include the Play Store.

“We have a very hands-on approach with our developers, and hope to expand that community so we can become an additional distribution channel for more developers and expose them to both a local and a global audience,” noted Lu Geng, the director of Huawei SA’s consumer cloud business.

“We want to do everything we can to make our Huawei users aware of these local apps and upload them. This will encourage the growth of the developer community in South Africa by giving developers more opportunities to generate revenue from in-app purchases,” Geng concluded.

Feature image: The Huawei Mate 10 Pro, by Huawei