Find what all services you are offered
Recently Huawei has made many new announcements for their smartphone owners in South Africa. There are over 22.9% of Huawei users in South Africa after Samsung mobiles constitute over 43.71% followed by Apple users which are 14.87% of the total population in this area.
Here are the things you should note if you own a Huawei smartphone in South Africa.
Services Of Huawei phone in South Africa
Free Service Days
Huawei now has free service days for all of their South African customers to ensure that you can keep your phones in best condition.
In the last week of every month from Thursday to Sunday, all customers with Huawei phones will be given access to:
- Free exterior phone cleaning
- Free screen protectors
- Free out-of-warranty labour charge (you only pay for parts replacement)
- Free software support.
These services are available at all Huawei customer service centres, and the most prominent city centres are:
- Johannesburg – Shop H37G,The Piazza, Melrose Arch
- Cape Town – Shop 96, Canal Walk Shopping Centre, Century Boulevard, Century City
- Cape Town – Shop G 231, Somerset Mall, Centenary Dr, Somerset West
- Durban – Shop U91, Cornubia Dr, Mount Edgecombe Country Estate 2, Mount Edgecombe.
Battery Replacement Service
Huawei will also be offering a special battery replacement from time to time. Recently it offered this promotion in June 2019. If your Huawei phone is out of warranty, Huawei will allow you to replace your phone battery for just R199.
If your phone is covered by warranty, Huawei will still replace the battery for free. All Huawei phones come with a two-year warranty, which covers both hardware and software issues.
You need to check with recent announcements at Huawei stores when this service will be again available.
Google’s OS Support to Huawei
In a recent news, Google has indefinitely suspended its business relationship with Chinese smartphone brand Huawei. Due to this Huawei will no longer be able to offer new customers access to Google’s Android operating system while current Huawei customers will not be able to download future Android system updates.
According to South Africa’s Wireless Application Service Providers’ Association (WASPA), consumers cannot return their Huawei phones to local network operators or retailers because these firms are protected by the legal concept of ‘force major’ which simply means sellers cannot be held liable for external events out of their immediate control.
Google has confirmed that all Huawei devices currently in use will still have access to Google Play which means continued app updates.
Huawei could update all existing phones to the open source version of Android which is not impacted by the trade war between the US and China. Unfortunately, apps like Gmail, YouTube and Google Maps would then only be available via a web browser.
For more information on this Vodacom, MTN and Cell C Customer Care are all available on 135 dialed from cellphones connected to their respective mobile networks. Telkom Mobile Customer Care can be reached on 180 dialled from a Telkom mobile handset.
No Instagram, Facebook or WhatsApp in new Huawei phones
The new Huawei phones will not have Instagram, Facebook and WhatsApp pre-installed. Users who already have Huawei phones will still be able to use its Facebook apps and receive updates. However, none of the apps will come pre-installed.
Also, it isn’t clear yet whether Huawei phone users without the apps will be able to download them on their own.
Facebook is the latest U.S. company to act on blacklisting of Huawei by the Commerce Department which restricts the sale of American technology to the Chinese maker of smartphones and telecommunications equipment.
Therefore popular Google apps won’t be on future Huawei phone models, and Huawei devices, which run on Google’s Android operating system, will have restricted access to certain Android features and updates as said above.
