Huawei may launch a third Nexus smartphone after HTC; or may be not: Updated

Update: Huawei contacted us with the following statement: “We don’t comment on future products, as a matter of policy. Huawei is committed to creating the world’s most compelling and innovative devices, offering an exceptional performance and outstanding user experience. We are proud to have worked with Google, which is strong in innovation, on the Nexus 6P and will continue to collaborate in the future, such as our support for Daydream, the recently-announced platform for high performance mobile VR.” So Huawei will be building a Daydream-ready smartphone  as indicated earlier, but for now, it does not seem to be working on a Google Nexus device.   A recent report by GearBurn of South Africa, who interviewed Charlene Munilall, general manager for Huawei’s Consumer Business Group in SA has sparked plenty of chatter online about a third Nexus device coming from Huawei this year. While there is plenty of evidence , that HTC will be the one spearheading the Nexus smartphone line up, Munilall’s statement at first glance does indicate that Huawei will have a Nexus smartphone out this year as well. Charlene Munilall while talking about distribution of the Nexus 6P also commented, “We’re doing the Nexus again this year, by the way,” and plenty seemed to have taken this as a subtle hint that Huawei could be building a successor to the Nexus 6P. Turns out, this may be wrong as well. As XDA author Aamir Siddiqui pointed out, it is all about context. And the author may have a strong case indeed. Turns out Charlene was talking about how distributors in South Africa do not usually take up Nexus devices. Here’s the complete brief from the interaction. Munilall also explained why there hasn’t been an official Nexus 6P launch in the country. “The Nexus product is a very niche product… the techies love it but there’s a very small number of people that buy it. Hence Cellucity only brought 300… into the country,” she explained. “…The operators generally don’t take up the Nexus device,” Munilall added. “That said, the distributors, our open market, do bring in the device, that’s how Cellucity got it… and that will still be the same this year. We’re doing the Nexus again this year, by the way,” she explained. In short, this could be Munilall talking about launching the existing Nexus 6P in South Africa as the company has not done that yet. This could be similar to earlier problems that Nexus fans had to go though in India. Manufacturers like Samsung and LG refused to bring Nexus devices in the country out of fear that consumers would ignore their flagship products (that came with plenty of bloat). This forced many to import the handset through e-commerce websites which also meant that they did not support warranty and that they could not be repaired in the country. Munilall’s problems however are a bit different and are more to do with distributors instead. So this could indeed be the case as 9to5Google reached out to Huawei and Google they have been mum on the topic so far.