China’s technology Ministry is worried about the dominance of Google’s Android platform, according to Reuters. The news agency links to a whitepaper authored by the research arm of China’s Ministry of Industry and Information Technology which contains the above graph — so it’s not difficult to see what the Ministry’s issue is: Android has grown from a standing start in 2008 to saturate the local market, taking 72.4 per cent in Q3 2012 (Gartner sourced data).
According to Reuters, the Ministry’s whitepaper is critical of China’s dependency on a platform it argues is ultimately controlled by Mountain View. “Our country’s mobile operating system research and development is too dependent on Android. While the Android system is open source, the core technology and technology roadmap is strictly controlled by Google,” the whitepaper states.
It also claims that Google has deliberately impeded the progress of some Chinese companies seeking to develop their own operating systems (presumably by forking Android) by delaying code sharing, and accuses Google of using commercial agreements to restrain the business development of mobile devices of these companies. The paper goes on to pile praise on homegrown companies such as Alibaba, Baidu and Huawei for creating their own systems.
Google declined to comment on the allegations in the whitepaper when contacted by TechCrunch.
Alibaba’s Aliyun OS was going to be used by Acer to power a Chinese smartphone planned for launch last year — but cancelled, at least in part, after Google intervened. (Google argued that Acer was building what it described as a “non-compatible” Android device, having previously committed to building compatible devices.) Presumably this is the sort of commercial pressure the whitepaper is critical of.
Alibaba also declined to comment on the Chinese whitepaper when contacted by Techcrunch.
Another graph in the whitepaper pegs the Aliyun OS’s share of the 2012 Chinese market at around one per cent — versus 86.4 per cent for Android: Reuters speculates that the Chinese government could be planning to impose regulations on Android to try to rein it in and give Chinese companies a chance to take some a greater share. That could also be good news for smaller foreign players such as Finnish startup Jolla, which is using the MeeGo open source OS as the foundation of its new Sailfish platform. Jolla is targeting its debut smartphone at China first, as well as setting up a base in Hong Kong to build an alliance around Sailfish. It has also attracted investment from China.
The smartphone market in China is undoubtedly huge — Jolla’s CEO describes it as a “300 million device market”. China also passed the U.S. as the world’s top country for active Android and iOS smartphones and tablets last month so it’s also a growing market. But while Android undoubtedly dominates the OS landscape not all Chinese Android-powered device are equal since a large proportion of homegrown mobile makers heavily customise Android and do not carry any of the standard Google services such as its Play store.
Analyst Enders Analysis created the below chart last year depicting Android page view data, sourced from Baidu, which illustrates how smaller Chinese device makers are increasingly dominating China’s device landscape — accounting for 39 per cent of the page views on Baidu properties in September 2012 vs just 22 per cent for the otherwise globally dominant Android OEM Samsung:
“Almost none” of the ‘other’ category of devices in this chart have Google services on them, according to Enders analyst Benedict Evans — so you could say that while Google’s platform is huge in China, Google itself may have far less influence than Android’s spread suggests because such a large swathe of locally made Androids are cut off from its services and thus can’t generate advertising sales for Mountain View.
In a recent blog post discussing Google’s failure to deliver any Android activation data since September 2012, Evans also notes that: “The great majority of Android devices sold in China, which are probably a third of total Android sales, come with no Google services installed, including no Google Play, and hence are not even included in Google’s activation numbers, since signing into Google Play is what counts as ‘activation’.”
With Apple just ending its conference call for its quarterly results, Strategy Analytics has published its numbers on global tablet sales for the quarter. Apple and the iPad remain in the lead with 57% of all shipments, but just as Apple missed sales expectations on the iPad, it also is losing some market share in the tablet market overall, with Android picking up the slack to reach an all-time high of 41% of shipments on overall shipments of just under 25 million units.
Strategy Analytics says that shipments were up by 43% on the same quarter a year ago, when they totaled 17.2 million. That’s not actually as impressive as it might sound. The year before, they were up by 289% compared to 2011 annually in Q2 2011. In fact, this is the slowest growth rate Strategy Analytics has seen; it started marking numbers in Q2 2010.
Although Google’s Nexus 7 and Amazon’s forked-Android tablets have been creating a lot of buzz, Strategy Analytics notes that anticipation for a new iPad model — which in fact was only announced this week — cooled buying somewhat. The other major factor is lingering economic uncertainty, which is impacting consumer spending for more than just tablets.
“Demand for tablets slowed due to ongoing economic uncertainty and consumers holding off purchases in anticipation of multiple new models, like the iPad Mini, during the upcoming Q4 holiday season,” writes Peter King, Director at Strategy Analytics.
Strategy Analytics calls Apple’s 14 million iPad shipment for the quarter “disappointing”. It’s also a clear decline of 7% on the same quarter a year ago. And because the tablet market, even more than the smartphone market, has been a two-horse race when it comes to platforms, Apple’s loss has been Android’s gain. “Apple’s slowdown allowed the Android community to make gains,” King writes.
Android’s 41% this quarter (10.2 million units shipped, double the number last year) is a big leap from the 29% share it had a year ago.
And as it was the case in the earlier days of smartphones, there was no single vendor on Android that is coming close to Apple in terms of volumes, points out Neil Mawston, executive director at Strategy Analytics.
The jury still out on whether Samsung will be able to repeat its eventual domination in tablets as it has in smartphones, especially since Amazon is now shipping its tablets globally, and Asus is behind the Nexus 7.
That could all change in the next couple of quarters, with the introduction of Windows 8 — although as it does in smartphones, Microsoft has a long way to go. SA notes that in this last quarter, shipments of Microsoft-powered tablets accounted for only 2% of the global total.
Strategy Analytics notes that these numbers are for tablets-only and not e-book readers.
Question by : How to keep my Android’s screen from constantly going dark? My Marauder Android phone’s screen is constantly going dark, and it’s becoming highly annoying. I’ll be in the middle of reading, when all of the sudden the screen goes black.
Also, I know for sure it’s not going black because of some sort of battery issue. It’s just going to sleep, or something similar to that.
Best answer:
Answer by Corvatosettings / power saving / turn off the sleep function (or make it take longer)
Know better? Leave your own answer in the comments!
Related Posts:
Music video by Limp Bizkit performing Nookie. (C) 2001 Interscope Geffen (A&M) Records A Division of UMG Recordings Inc.
Related Posts:
$1.25 (2 Bids)End Date: Saturday May-18-2013 13:26:33 PDTBuy It Now for only: $50.00Buy It Now | Bid now | Add to watch list
HTC Droid Incredible Verizon Wireless Wifi 8.0 MP Camera 8GB Android Cell Phone
$64.95End Date: Monday May-20-2013 10:07:32 PDTBuy It Now for only: $64.95Buy It Now | Add to watch list
Related Posts:
LG Optimus US670 - Blue (U.S. Cellular) Smartphone
$1.25 (2 Bids)End Date: Saturday May-18-2013 13:26:33 PDTBuy It Now for only: $50.00Buy It Now | Bid now | Add to watch list
New 4.0" Multi-touch Android 4.0 Dual Sim WIFI Smartphone AT&T T-Mobile Unlocked
$63.95End Date: Monday May-27-2013 19:22:44 PDTBuy It Now for only: $63.95Buy It Now | Add to watch list
HTC Droid Incredible Verizon Wireless Wifi 8.0 MP Camera 8GB Android Cell Phone
$64.95End Date: Monday May-20-2013 10:07:32 PDTBuy It Now for only: $64.95Buy It Now | Add to watch list
NEW SAMSUNG SGH I937 FOCUS S - BLACK 4G WINDOWS 7.5 16GB TOUCH (AT&T) SMARTPHONE
$163.86End Date: Saturday May-18-2013 22:10:23 PDTBuy It Now for only: $163.86Buy It Now | Add to watch list
Nokia Lumia 900 Cyan UNLOCKED 16GB RM-808 with Windows 7.8
$147.50 (23 Bids)End Date: Sunday May-19-2013 9:00:54 PDTBid now | Add to watch list
New Nokia Lumia 900 - 16GB - Black (Unlocked) Windows Smartphone
$233.95End Date: Saturday Jun-15-2013 16:56:58 PDTBuy It Now for only: $233.95Buy It Now | Add to watch list
LG Optimus US670 - Blue (U.S. Cellular) Smartphone
$1.25 (2 Bids)End Date: Saturday May-18-2013 13:26:33 PDTBuy It Now for only: $50.00Buy It Now | Bid now | Add to watch list
New 4.0" Multi-touch Android 4.0 Dual Sim WIFI Smartphone AT&T T-Mobile Unlocked
$63.95End Date: Monday May-27-2013 19:22:44 PDTBuy It Now for only: $63.95Buy It Now | Add to watch list
HTC Droid Incredible Verizon Wireless Wifi 8.0 MP Camera 8GB Android Cell Phone
$64.95End Date: Monday May-20-2013 10:07:32 PDTBuy It Now for only: $64.95Buy It Now | Add to watch list
If you are looking for something serious, go www.youtube.com www.youtube.com www.youtube.com en.wikipedia.org en.wikipedia.org Music: sam-free.com D-16 “End of the world” (Website holder have closed this site.) My blog about the best comedy videos (in Japanese) tubenglish.seesaa.net
Related Posts:
Android conspiracy theories? They go all the way to the top — or will soon, thanks to the US Defense Information Systems Agency (DISA). The department has given the green light to use Dell’s Mobile Security for Android platform on defense networks. The testing process utilized the Dell Streak, because apparently being giant is an important part of national security.
Dell Streak gets DISA approval, Androids look to Pentagon invasion originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 31 Oct 2011 22:11:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
Permalink 
Defense Sytems | 
Dell | Email this | Comments
