Huawei phone owners flock to sell off devices

Britons are selling Huawei phones after news that Google will block updates on the devices.

Brits are scrambling to sell their Huawei phones, following the news that Google will block Android updates on Huawei phones.

The move is designed to comply with a US government order blacklisting the Chinese firm, as part of an ongoing trade war between the two countries.

Tech site musicMagpie, which gets thousands of devices traded-in daily, said it saw Huawei trade-ins increase by 154 per cent yesterday.

Trade-ins peaked at 1pm on 20 May 2019, when the site had more Huawei devices traded-in than any other phone brand.

The Huawei P20 was the third most traded-in phone of the day at the tech site – this was ahead of popular devices such as the Samsung S8, iPhone 6 and iPhone 7.

The Mate Pro was also in the site's top 10 most traded-in phones of the day. 

"Huawei users are preparing for a potential device change in the event of further restrictions being put in place against the Chinese phone manufacturer," Liam Howley, CMO at musicMagpie, told Mirror Online.

"Looking at Huawei’s depreciation rate, in general, Android devices depreciate faster than Apple handsets.

"But in the space of a year, the P20 has depreciated by a huge 81 per cent, whilst the P30 which was only released last month, has depreciated by 46% already."

Last night, the US Commerce Department announced a 90-day grace period for Huawei, to give operators time to make other arrangements before the ban comes into force.

"In short, this license will allow operations to continue for existing Huawei mobile phone users and rural broadband networks," said Secretary of Commerce Wilbur Ross.

Google said it would continue to support existing Huawei smartphones but future devices will not have its flagship apps and services, including maps, Gmail and search.

Only basic services would be available for future versions of the Android operating system on Huawei's smartphones.