The German news agency Deutsche Presse Agentur reported on Wednesday that the search behemoth — which owns the dominant mobile operating system Android that is used on more than 80% of the smartphones used globally — was waiting for a response.

DPA appears to have contacted Android and Google Play vice-president Sameer Samat, but he provided no indication as to when a decision would be made.

The agency gave no indication of when Google had made the application.

Five days later, the US Commerce Department said the ban would be eased for 90 days, so that existing networks and handsets which had already been sold by the Chinese firm would continue to receive software updates. A further 90-day extension was granted in November.

Reports say that a number of processor makers, Intel among them, have got around the ban by selling Huawei goods made in their external outlets.

In November, it was reported that the US Commerce Department had granted Microsoft an exemption from doing business with Huawei.

This meant the Chinese firm was able to continue using Windows on its latest line of laptops.

However, Huawei had to release at least two of its smartphones without the proprietary Google apps: Gmail, Maps and the Google Play Store. The Mate Pro 30 used a customised version of the open source version of Android instead.

Thanks to The Register for a link to the DPA story.