Huawei has given up on Windows Phone for the time being

Smartphone maker Huawei has put its plans for Windows Phone devices on hold, saying it will use Android to try to challenge the dominance of Samsung and Apple. Huawei is perhaps best known for building telecoms infrastructure but has been moving increasingly into the consumer hardware space. The company is now the third-biggest smartphone maker behind Samsung and Apple, with its Ascend range of devices among its best-known products. In an interview at Huawei’s headquarters in Shenzhen, China, Huawei’s consumer business group marketing director Shao Yang said that while the company had built Windows Phone devices in the past, they were hard to sell and Huawei has now suspended plans to use the operating system. “For us we think Android is the best choice,” he said. “The biggest problem is that Windows is not quite easy to develop independently… a lot of things are defined by Windows [and] they leave a very small space for vendors to develop.” In contrast, he said, with Android phones “every vendor has their own potential to make… innovation”. Back in March, Shao said the company was working on a phone that would dual-boot both Windows Phone and Android, but the project has been shelved.