The HUAWEI HMS App Innovation Contest is aimed at developers, offering AUD$1.3million in cash prizes

With no option to offer apps to customers through the Google Play Store on their phones and tablets thanks to the ongoing US trade ban, Huawei is looking to bolster their app selection the App Gallery with a competition with AUD$1.3million in global cash prizes on offer.

The HUAWEI HMS App Innovation Contest, Apps UP, is courting developers in Asia Pacific, Europe, Middle East & Africa, Latin America and China looking to submit apps across five categories. Huawei is looking to attract apps in five categories: Best App, Best Game, Best Social Impact App, Most Popular App and Honourable Mention.

Prizes include both cash, up to $15,000USD on some categories, as well as Huawei Cloud resources vouchers and Cloud Academy Credits which offers training on HUAWEI cloud computing products.

The Huawei AppsUp entry page lists the prizes and perks across each of the five categories, and appears to include an offer for personalised training on how to integrate apps with HMS (Huawei Mobile Services) Core. The training in integrating HMS over Google Play Services will be beneficial and may avoid a lot of work.

Speaking about the contest, Larking Huang, Managing Director of Huawei Consumer Business in Australia said Mobile apps and technology that make our professional and personal lives easier are being developed at speed, on a daily basis around the world. At Huawei, we always aim to rethink and redefine what’s possible, pushing the limits of technological innovation, and that is the inspiration for our AppsUp Competition. We are rapidly building the services and apps we offer our consumers, and now we are encouraging Australian developers to get involved and be a part of our journey by creating exciting new apps that will benefit everyone – leveraging HMS Core.

The contest runs until 4:00am AEST on 31 August 2020, with apps required to be submitted to the contest website. A panel of regional industry experts will judge and score each entry on social value, business value, user experience and originality, picking the top 20 which will be made available for the public to download through the Huawei App Gallery on their mobile devices in September before APAC winners are announced on November 6th.