Commercial Discrimination: China Critical of Android OS

A Chinese government research institute has accused Google of using its Android mobile OS dominance to discriminate against local companies. The report suggests that China is too reliant on the platform and Google has delayed sharing code in recent versions of Android. This serves as a reminder of the ongoing tensions between China and Google, after the tech giant said it would not comply with Chinese Internet restrictions three years ago.

At that time, Google pulled its servers out of mainland China. “It also highlights Android’s strong presence in China, where the operating system powers about four out of five mobile devices, including gadgets made by Chinese companies vying to take market share from Apple Inc. and Samsung Electronics,” reports the Wall Street Journal.

The Chinese government is placing emphasis on local smartphone manufacturers like Huawei Technologies Co. and ZTE Inc., both of which have gained footing in the smartphone market by supplying low-cost handsets abroad and to the massive local Chinese smartphone market.

“Chinese enterprises have generally used Android as a foundation to optimize and develop [products],” said the China Academy of Telecommunication Research in its report.

“The report notes, however, that while Android is an open-source platform — meaning anyone can use it free of charge — its core technology remains tightly controlled by Google,” explains WSJ.

“The development of Chinese operating systems constantly faces commercial discrimination from Google,” the research institute said.

Google currently has an 82.6 percent share of the mobile operating system market, according to Beijing-based research firm Analysys International. Additionally, Android powers 70 percent of smartphones worldwide, according to Gartner, which reported numbers at the end of Q4 2012.

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