Tech vendor, Huawei, has announced it has enlisted the services of SovTech, a custom software development company to assist with refiguring the core services of some of South Africa’s most used mobile apps to be able to function fully on its Huawei Mobile Services (HMS) ecosystem.
In terms of the partners, SovTech will assist Huawei’s local app partners to migrate onto the vendor’s app distribution platform, Huawei AppGallery and add HMS core services on more than 40 apps.
According to the tech vendor, its Huawei AppGallery has generated over 350 billion app downloads globally since launching in April 2018.
Luke Hunt, Director of Product Advance, at SovTech’s app division, said: “SovTech is responsible for developing a new Android Package File (APK) that would work on the Huawei AppGallery using only HMS integration kits. Huawei is focusing on a lot of research and development, and will really challenge the status quo in terms of what we are used to in the space of mobile services offerings.”
To kick off the partnership with Huawei, SovTech had a code share agreement with Travelstart, a an developer using it as a proof of concept to demonstrate their capability to rejig and replace all of the core services with HMS. SovTech integrated Travelstart’s Flapp app with HMS in order to make it easy for Huawei users to search, compare and book the best deals on flights, hotels and cars for business and leisure travel.
Hunt added that being partnered with Huawei marks a significant milestone for SovTech. “Huawei has got a huge global brand and reach, which is strategically important for SovTech,” he said. “With just 8 years in operation, SovTech has been growing rapidly year-on-year to now operate cross-continentally from Johannesburg, Cape Town, London and Dubai. This partnership will surely open up great opportunities for us.”
Likun Zhao, Vice President, Huawei Consumer Business Group, Middle East and Africa (MEA), said: “Huawei is excited to partner with SovTech. We have entrusted the software development company as a tech partner to help Huawei to readjust the architecture of South Africa’s most popular apps to be compatible with HMS. Our goal is to ensure that our Huawei device users have access to all the best apps they need, to address almost every life need.”
Huawei said with HMS having fully replaced all the application programming interfaces (APIs) and features of other prior mobile services on Huawei devices, a lot of developers and companies in South Africa are seeing the value in customising their apps for HMS in order to expand their market reach and ultimately the monitisation of their developed apps.
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