Where Petal Search's results actually come from
Petal Search's open-web results are delivered by Microsoft Bing. Huawei's own materials never name the partner; the privacy statement describes it only as "third-party search engines" that "may be used in some countries or regions to supplement your searches", adding that in that case the query is transmitted as a URL to the search engine. Wikipedia states the partner plainly. Either way, on a general web query you are reading Bing's index through a Huawei interface.
There is a second fact that matters at least as much, and almost nobody who writes about Petal Search mentions it. The standalone Petal web search engine was discontinued on 25 June 2023. There was no press release. The shutdown was noticed by webmaster communities and recorded on Wikipedia rather than announced. So the product a reader may be picturing — a Huawei web search engine you visit in a browser — no longer exists as such. The Petal Search app does, and Huawei still promotes it.
Reselling another engine's results is a neutral structural fact, not a criticism; several engines do it deliberately and openly. What is unusual here is the opacity. Huawei has never named its results partner in its own documentation, never announced the web engine's closure, and never explained the relationship between the results you see and the crawler it demonstrably runs.
PetalBot: a real crawler that does not explain the results
Huawei does operate a crawler. PetalBot is documented at aspiegel.com with exact user-agent strings for its desktop and mobile variants, and any site owner who checks server logs will find it. Aspiegel describes PetalBot as an automatic program of the Petal search engine that crawls in order to establish an index database, enabling users to search a site's content in the Petal search engine and to present content recommendations. The same page says PetalBot powers Huawei Assistant and AI Search services.
This is the point where most write-ups go wrong in one direction or the other. A crawler is not the same thing as an open-web ranking product. The evidence supports a split: Huawei crawls to feed content recommendations, Huawei Assistant and its AI Search features, while the general web result set a user sees is Bing's. Huawei has never published an account of how the two relate — no index size, no ranking documentation, no statement of which query classes are answered from its own index rather than the partner feed.
So: anyone telling you Petal Search "has its own index" is over-reading the existence of PetalBot. Anyone telling you Huawei "has no crawler" is also wrong. The honest position is that the crawl is real, its role in what users see is undocumented, and that uncertainty should be stated rather than resolved.
Why it exists, who runs it, and how it is funded
Petal Search has a single originating cause: the 2019 United States trade restrictions that removed Huawei's access to Google Mobile Services. No ban, no Petal Search. A Huawei phone shipping without the Play Store, without Google Search and without Google Maps needed replacements for all three, and Huawei built them — an app store, a mapping layer, and this.
That history explains the product's shape. Petal Search launched in 2020 as an Android mobile search application, not a website, and its most-used function is finding and installing Android apps, aggregating listings from Huawei's AppGallery and other app stores. Around that core it wraps local-business search, voice search, visual search and shopping search. Local and business data comes from third-party providers including Uberall, Tripadvisor, Yell and Foursquare.
It is therefore not, and was never intended to be, a Google competitor. It is the search-shaped hole-filler in Huawei Mobile Services, whose job is to keep a phone usable when the ecosystem it was designed around has been withdrawn.
The parent is Huawei Technologies Co., Ltd, of Shenzhen, China. The European-facing legal entity and named data controller is Aspiegel SE, a company incorporated in Ireland with registration number 561134, at Ballsbridge, Dublin. Aspiegel is a Huawei subsidiary, and the contact address for PetalBot is a huawei.com address.
Commercially, Huawei runs Petal Ads (formerly Huawei Ads), its own advertising platform covering search, app and display inventory across Huawei Mobile Services; its EU privacy statement carries a version date of 14 May 2024, which is evidence that the ad platform stayed actively maintained after the web engine closed. App-install advertising is the natural way to monetise an app-discovery search product.
But the rationale is strategic before it is commercial. Petal Search exists so that a Huawei phone without Google Mobile Services remains a usable phone; it protects the hardware business by making the HMS ecosystem viable, and it is funded as ecosystem infrastructure by a very large parent rather than as a search business that has to earn out. Huawei does not break out revenue for it. Judge it as a platform-completeness play.
Privacy: two defensible readings, and one that is not
The Petal Search privacy statement — the version that can be retrieved carries a date of May 2021, which is five years stale as of August 2026 — makes specific commitments. Aspiegel SE in Ireland is named as data controller for the covered region, which places European users under GDPR with the Irish Data Protection Commission as lead supervisory authority. The statement says search queries are never stored linked to an IP address, that search data is collected against a unique random identifier rather than an identified user, and that queries are erased or stripped of identifiers within six months of collection. Other retention periods range from thirty minutes for visual-search images up to six years for customer-relationship records. It also discloses that queries may be transmitted as URLs to third-party search engines in some regions.
Aspiegel holds ePrivacyseal certification, which is genuine third-party European review — but it is a commercial certification scheme, not an adversarial security audit, and it should not be presented as one. No independent adversarial technical audit of Petal Search's data handling was found.
Two readings of all this are legitimate, and a reader deserves both. The legal reading: an Irish data controller under GDPR, with a stated six-month query-retention cap and an explicit no-IP-linkage claim, is on paper a stronger posture than many US engines offer. The geopolitical reading: the ultimate parent is a Chinese company subject to national-security restrictions in the US, UK, Australia, Canada and parts of the EU, and whether the Irish controller structure is sufficient insulation is a contested political question rather than a settled technical one.
What is not legitimate is either slogan: that Huawei "sends your searches to Beijing", or that "Aspiegel SE means it's fine". Neither has been demonstrated. Note also that the privacy statement is region-versioned, so users outside the EEA do not necessarily get the Irish controller, and specifics should be re-checked against a current regional version rather than the 2021 document.
AI features
Huawei operates something called AI Search, fed by its own crawl — the PetalBot documentation says so directly. Beyond the name, almost nothing is public.
The underlying model has never been identified in any statement that could be found. Huawei develops the Pangu model family and it would be a reasonable guess that Pangu is involved, but a guess is all it is and it should not be repeated as fact. The launch date of AI Search is not published. Whether AI answers can be disabled is not documented. And Huawei's own UK consumer page for Petal Search made no mention of AI capabilities at all as of 19 August 2026 — which suggests AI Search is positioned separately from the Petal Search consumer product in that market, or simply has not been marketed into it.
How many people use it
No credible current figure exists. Petal Search does not appear in StatCounter's global or major-market search tables, and Huawei has published nothing on usage since the early period.
Two numbers circulate, and only one of them is real. In March 2021 Huawei reported 18 million monthly active users outside China and stated a target of 60 million by the end of that year. The 60 million figure is repeated widely as though it were an achievement. It was a projection announced in March 2021, and no source confirming it was reached could be found. It should not be cited as a user count.
The other frequently quoted numbers are distribution claims rather than usage: 55 languages across 170 countries and regions, as of November 2021 — nearly five years old. Given that the web engine closed in June 2023, current web-search usage is plausibly negligible, and app usage is bounded by the installed base of Huawei devices outside China, which has itself contracted sharply since the sanctions.
Who it suits, and who it does not
What it does well. Finding and installing Android apps on a device with no Play Store. That is not a consolation prize — it is a genuinely hard problem that Petal Search solves for Huawei users, and nothing else solves it as well on that hardware. The local-business search built on Uberall, Tripadvisor, Yell and Foursquare feeds is serviceable in the European markets it targeted. The GDPR posture, as written, is better than the industry median.
What it is bad at. Being a web search engine, which it has not been since 25 June 2023. On general queries you get Bing's results with an extra intermediary and less tooling. It is undocumented in every way that matters to a careful user: no index size, no ranking explanation, no statement of when its own crawl is used rather than the partner feed, no named model behind AI Search, no launch date for the AI features, and a flagship privacy statement dated 2021. The most-quoted usage figure is a target that was never confirmed as met, and the closure of the web engine was never announced.
Who has no reason to use it. Anyone who is not on a Huawei device. Where Google Play and any mainstream engine are available, choosing Petal Search means taking Bing's results with less transparency and fewer features. Anyone whose threat model includes the Chinese state should weigh the ultimate-parent question seriously despite the Irish controller structure — the public record settles it neither for nor against Huawei. And nobody should cite Petal Search as an example of an independent alternative to the Google–Bing duopoly. On the open web, it is Bing.
Common misconceptions
- "Petal Search is Huawei's independent engine with its own index." Its open-web results are Bing's. PetalBot exists and crawls, but Huawei has never claimed or documented that PetalBot's index serves general web results.
- "Petal Search is dead." Half right, and the half matters. The web search engine was discontinued on 25 June 2023. The app remains available, Huawei still promotes it, and PetalBot documentation was still live as of August 2026.
- "Petal Search has 60 million users." That was a target stated in March 2021, alongside an actual figure of 18 million monthly active users outside China. No source confirms it was met.
- "PetalBot in my logs means Petal is indexing my site for web search." By Huawei's own description PetalBot feeds content recommendations, Huawei Assistant and AI Search as well as the Petal search engine. What the crawl surfaces to users is not documented.
- "It's Chinese, so Chinese law governs your data." For EU and EEA users the named controller is Aspiegel SE, an Irish company under GDPR. That does not dissolve the parent-company question, but the legal structure is more specific than the slogan — and it varies by region.
- "Petal Search competes with Google." It was built because Huawei lost access to Google, to keep its phones working. It has never been a general-web competitor and no longer runs a general-web product.
Petal Search also won an iF DESIGN AWARD in 2022. That is a design award, and says nothing about search quality.
Frequently asked questions
Does Petal Search have its own index?
Not for open-web results. Those are delivered by Microsoft Bing, and Huawei's own privacy statement acknowledges transmitting queries to third-party search engines in some regions without naming them. Huawei does run a crawler, PetalBot, which it says builds an index database and powers Huawei Assistant and AI Search — but it has never documented that this index serves general web results, published an index size, or explained how the two systems relate.
Is Petal Search shut down?
The standalone web search engine is. It was discontinued on 25 June 2023, without any announcement — the change was noticed by webmaster communities and recorded on Wikipedia. The Petal Search mobile app is still distributed through Huawei's AppGallery and the Apple App Store, Huawei's UK consumer site still promotes it, and PetalBot documentation was live as of August 2026. So the app is alive and the web engine is not.
Who owns Petal Search?
Huawei Technologies Co., Ltd of Shenzhen, China. The European-facing legal entity and named data controller is Aspiegel SE, incorporated in Ireland with registration number 561134 and an address in Ballsbridge, Dublin. Aspiegel is a Huawei subsidiary. Which entity controls a given user's data depends on region, and the privacy statement is versioned by region, so the Irish arrangement should not be assumed to apply outside the EEA.
Is Petal Search safe and private?
Its stated policy is stronger than many engines': an Irish data controller under GDPR, a claim that queries are never stored linked to an IP address, collection against a random identifier, and erasure or de-identification of queries within six months. Against that, the retrievable privacy statement is dated May 2021, no adversarial technical audit has been published, and the ultimate parent is subject to national-security restrictions in several countries. Both readings are legitimate; the public record settles neither.
What is PetalBot and should I block it?
PetalBot is Huawei's web crawler, documented by Aspiegel with published desktop and mobile user-agent strings. Huawei describes it as building an index database and powering Huawei Assistant and AI Search alongside the Petal search engine. Because Huawei has never documented what the crawl surfaces to users, a site owner cannot reason about the traffic benefit the way they could with a major engine. Standard robots.txt controls apply if you choose to restrict it.
Why did Huawei build its own search engine?
Because the 2019 United States trade restrictions removed Huawei's access to Google Mobile Services, leaving its phones without the Play Store, Google Search and Google Maps. Petal Search launched in 2020 as an Android app to fill that gap, and its most-used function is discovering and installing Android apps by aggregating Huawei's AppGallery with other stores. Without the sanctions, the product would not exist.
How many people use Petal Search?
There is no credible current figure. It does not appear in StatCounter's search-engine tables and Huawei has published nothing since 2021, when it reported 18 million monthly active users outside China and set a target of 60 million by year end. That 60 million number is widely repeated as an achievement; it was a projection, and no source confirms it was reached. Distribution claims of 55 languages and 170 countries date from November 2021.