Huawei’s Android license pulled by Google

Analysis of Twitter conversations discussing the ban

A. Briceno

Researcher/Data AnalystJuly 1, 2019

In what could become one of the defining moments of international trade and technology, the US government released a list of companies banned from acquiring American technology, among which Huawei was found.

The Trump administration has adopted an increasingly hostile approach towards Chinese Tech Firms. It is no surprise that Huawei, the Chinese mobile behemoth, became a trending topic on social media during the last days, as its name figured in a list of entities incapable of buying American technology (without explicit permission from the government). Google contributed with clarification on the matter, for both products the Android OS and Google Play: current Huawei devices wouldn't be facing real ToS changes for Android or Google Products, but this would likely change for future devices.

Having such a familiar component from a mobile device like an OS or a complete set of your favorite apps seems like something implausible, but this is exactly the case.

Wanting to know more about how the announcements have affected the opinion of users and enthusiasts all over the world towards the brand, we have chosen Twitter as a platform for further investigation.

What do people think about Huawei now?

For anyone following the brand's controversial history, the ban on Huawei may be perceived as a natural conclusion to a far fetched rivalry between American, Korean and Chinese firms. Throughout the years Huawei has been the object of a myriad of lawsuits and scandals, from copyright to faulty design, even to entire spycraft conspiracies, and yet managed to shove them off every single time.

That is until now, no other past crisis involving the Chinese brand had received this amount of media coverage. The following micro-study aims to deliver clarity in terms of how the press releases have impacted Huawei's reputation during the last months through the analysis of Twitter conversations from January to June 2019.

Volume of Conversations

The virality of the issue becomes apparent when comparing the mentions of previous months (Huawei was previously sued for its utilization of an existing patent for screens materials).

With almost 16X the number of mentions the brand normally receives every month, it becomes clear Huawei is dealing with a PR crisis.

A unique characteristic of the trend is the participation of press media, as most of the conversation was driven by their posts (more than 65% of the total conversation). The phenomenon is further explained by user behavior on Google Trends, as search for Huawei and Android was only percieved to grow a couple of days after Twitter conversations reached critical mass (May 17). Thus, we can infer that media coverage played a major role in prolonging the lifespan of the spike of conversations.

By May 26, the volume of conversations returned to a natural amount. However, we can infer by the prolonged augment of conversations during the month of June vs. previous months, that the brand had received increased scrutiny by social media users.

On May 16, Huawei argues the ban mostly harms American jobs and companies, causing big discussions on Twitter.On May 19, Google publicly communicates the Huawei-Android situation.

Sentiment of Conversations

Before the announcement, mentions of Huawei were mostly positive. Most of the commentary consisted of user views concerning new model releases, as well as making a direct comparison with other competitors, putting Huawei in a favorable spotlight. Press driven conversations were also mostly concerned about new product releases.

Sentiment towards Huawei changed drastically after the ban announcement, making now 76% of mentions have negative connotations for the brand. It is important to remember that this has also a multiplicative effect, as conversations during the event were 16 times higher in volume than months prior.

The event also led many conversations steering from their comparison nature, towards a politicized commentary and international trade, as well as people pondering about the future of Huawei devices. Being somewhat unexpected news, the commentary in all aspects had to do with 'surprise'. The next most common sentiment among commenters was fear, in terms of both their products as well as the increasing animosity of American and Chinese governments. (that is a transnational corporation losing a defining feature of their product thanks to licensing). An important aspect mentioned alongside the ban was the development of Huawei's OS "Harmony" which has led some users to express joyful commentary.

Contains topics such asCompetitor Comparison: Samsung, Apple, Oneplus, iPhone, Mate. Consumer Uncertainty: Android OS, Applications, Google Play, Hongmeng. Politics: Trump, Spionage, Blacklist, Ban, Political Actions. Trade: Economic War, Exploitation, Trade Deal, Outsourcing, Competition.

Top words used alongside "Huawei" on Twitter from Jan 1, 2019 to June 31, 2019.

People speaking about the ban

People participating in Twitter's discussions concerning Huawei were mostly men. Surprisingly, only 17.1% of users were categorized as Tech Enthusiasts. Even though most of the commentary was directed towards nodes of discussion were the central figure was press released media, most users participating in the conversation were casual consumers of technology (people who would qualify themselves as tech lovers, nor did speak about technology on their Twitter feed), concerned with the functionality of their devices.

"User Occupations" was classified in terms of Twitter Profile's "Bio" content.

Key Takeaways:

The "Ban" is Huawei's biggest PR crisis ever registered. Most of the information dissemination was performed by press media on social media hubs like Twitter.
Sentiment surrounding the brand suffered greatly, registering a 34% shift of sentiment from positive to negative.
Huawei had a 48-hour window before social media commentary reached critical mass (and led to the PR crisis). The company was incapable of damage mitigation for confidence loss of users.
Succesful strategies included Huawei's teaser presentation of Harmony OS. This did not tend to the rest of qualms presented by users, such as access to the Google Play store and political commentary.
Most of Huawei's commentary had to do with implications within American grounds, yet most of its userbase is located around the world, and no attempts to address these packets of users were made.

All and all, many culprits could be covered for a company like Huawei to enhance their crisis response strategies, and through this descriptive analysis, we can visualize some areas of improvement. To gain further understanding of how this kind of crisis work further studies are needed: Explanatory Analysis to gain clarity on the events causalities, and the symptomatology of previous crisis to perform predictive analysis of future events..

Page updated

Google Sites

Report abuse