Huawei Technologies has partnered with Dutch mapping and navigation firm TomTom to use the latter's services on smartphone apps, media reports revealed.
— Huawei Mobile UK (@HuaweiMobileUK) January 16, 2020
The deal had not been publicised but was closed some time ago, TomTom spokesman Remco Meerstra has said as quoted by Reuters.
TomTom began moving away from selling devices to providing software services, namely after it sold its telematics division to Japanese auto parts manufacturer Bridgestone for €910m in January last year, now renamed Webfleet Solutions.
The news comes after US president Donald Trump, citing 'national security concerns', blacklisted the Beijing-based tech giant and over 70 Chinese firms in May last year amid escalating tensions in the US trade war on China.
Both Huawei and Beijing strongly condemned the move while repeatedly denying all accusations from Washington that its technologies are being used to spy for the Chinese government.
— Michael 🌍 (@Mike60319099) January 18, 2020
The measure blocked Huawei's access to Google Play Services, including Google Maps and others, prompting the company to form its own ecosystem of core developer kits as well as operating systems on mobiles and other devices.
Huawei also announced at a conference in London on Thursday it would invest £20m in the UK and Ireland to help programmers build their own apps on the company's proprietary mobile ecosystem, Huawei Mobile Services, in a bid to become the third-largest ecosystem in the world and expand its global share of the app development market.
