Russian internet group Mail.ru is in talks with China’s Huawei about the possibility of having its software pre-installed on the Chinese tech giant’s devices, the Russian company told TASS news agency.
“Yes, we can confirm the negotiations. We are interested in our products being presented on the maximum number of platforms, including Huawei. Mail.ru Group is open to all mutually beneficial partnerships,” the company said.
Mail.Ru owns Russian social networks Vkontakte and Odnoklassniki. It is developing several messenger services and has an email and browser service.
Earlier, it was reported that Huawei was in talks with Yandex, in particular about the possibility of integrating its voice assistant in Huawei smartphones.
In June, the Russian Federal Antimonopoly Service (FAS) has finalized a bill proposing to oblige manufacturers of smartphones, tablets and computers to pre-install domestic software on devices for the Russian market.
According to the bill, the choice of domestic software should actually remain with the consumers of the devices, based on the economic feasibility and relevance of software. The FAS said this can include pre-installing applications such as search engines and antivirus software, navigators, instant messengers and social networks.
The idea of introducing mandatory pre-installation of domestic software on smartphones and computers for the Russian market is included in a roadmap for the development of competition in Russia, approved in the summer of 2018.
In February 2019, the FAS sent a concept and a bill to the Ministry of Communications and Mass Media, after which the details of the issue were discussed.
