Application release in HUAWEI AppGallery

Usually when we create an application, it is important for us to make it available to as many users as possible within our target group. To share our creations, we mostly use Google’s Play Store. Unfortunately, China blocks this, so about 18.5% of the population is cut off from access to our products. Huawei comes to the rescue with their application distribution service, which is very similar to the Play Store. In this article, we will show you how to fill in all the forms, and release your application in HUAWEI AppGallery. To make it easier, we are going to use ParrotOne, one of the applications that we created, as an example.

Prepare before release (required):

• developer account in Huawei Developers website (if not, go to register, and fill all forms),
• list of supported languages,
• app name in each supported language (max 64 characters),
• introduction text in each supported language (max 8000 characters),
• brief introduction in each supported language (max 80 characters),
• app icon (216 x 216 px) in PNG, less than 2MB,
• screenshots of application, min 3 images, max 2MB each, jpg, jpeg, png, preferred size: 450 x 800px, ratio 9:16,
• privacy policy URL,
• application file (apk).

Open the HUAWEI AppGallery distribution page

1.1. Go to https://developer.huawei.com/consumer/en/ and select console at the top of the page (you have to be logged in).

1.2. In the Distribution and Promotion section, click on HUAWEI AppGallery

A new page will open in a new browser tab.

On this page, you will be able to find answers to other questions in the  FAQs section.

1.3 To browse your applications and distribute a new one, select My apps.

Creating new app

On the AppGallery Connect page, you will see all the applications that you added before, with basic information such as the latest release status.

To add a new application, select New.

A new dialog will appear.

Fill in the form and select Create.

You will go to the App information page for the project you are currently creating.

App Information

It’s time to provide some basic information about the app that is being published.First of all, it is required to select all the supported languages (by the store, but this should be equivalent to the languages supported by app itself).

The examples in this section come from one of our products, ParrotOne.

Localization

For each added language, the Name, Introduction and Brief Introduction have to be provided. If it is an update, the New features section should be filled.

Visual aspect

Now it’s time to take care of the visual part of the app information. First, you need to upload the app’s icon. The icon has to be square (216×216 px) and in PNG format, with a size limit of 2 MB.

Next, you need to provide screenshots from the application. The important thing here is to keep a 9:16 ratio for the images.

This is the end of the App information part. Select Save and then select Version information from the menu on the left.

Version Information

App Countries/Regions availability

The first thing to do is to fill in the countries and regions that your app should be visible to. Keep in mind that if you select Chines mainland you will have to prepare Copyright information.

App file (APK)

Now it’s time to upload the apk file (up to 2 GB). Select Manage package.

A dialog will appear in which you have to drop/select the apk file to upload it.

Pricing

Now you have to set the price of your application.

Content Rating

Now you have to set the content rating for your application. It is only required to select one of five options, accordingly with the description.

Privacy Policy

You also have to provide a URL for the privacy policy that the application meets.

Review Information (optional)

You can type in some extra information, such as login data, to make it easier for the reviewer to evaluate your app.

Release Schedule

Finally, you can set the release date for your application.

After selecting, this click save and submit. If any data is missing, a notice will be displayed and the relevant field/s will be highlighted in red.

Review

According to information from the Huawei developer page, the review should be completed in three to five workdays. From my experience, it can take up to two weeks.

Summary

The process of releasing an app in HUAWEI AppGallery is almost the same as in the Google Play console. There are no major differences. If you want to expand your app’s visibility on the Chinese market, you should definitely consider using AppGallery.