Google, Beijing Clash Over Android 谷歌与中国政府因安卓而冲突
Global Internet titan Google (Nasdaq: GOOG) just can’t seem to do anything right in China. Or perhaps the company is just a victim of its own success. The latter appears to be the case in Google’s latest China tussle, which has the telecoms regulator in Beijing accusing Google of unfairly dominating the Chinese mobile market with its popular Android operating system (OS). (English article) The regulator, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT) is also accusing Google of discriminating against Chinese OS developers.
All of these allegations have come in a white paper published by one of the MIIT’s research arms, meaning at this point they are merely observations and are not part of any specific policy. But history has shown that this kind of observation can often find its way into government policy, meaning we could see the MIIT issue new regulations to rein in Google and Android over the next year. In a worst-case scenario, the MIIT could even potentially bar Android from the China market, though this outcome seems unlikely since it would put Chinese smartphone makers at a huge disadvantage to their global rivals.
This building conflict is nothing new for Google, which has had a contentious relationship with Beijing over the last 3 years. The company frequently clashed with the Chinese government over its strict censorship policies, which resulted in Google’s high-profile decision to shutter its China-based search site in 2010.
More recently the company clashed with Beijing over its China mapping service, with Beijing requiring Google to offer its service through a joint venture. China also held up Google’s high profile purchase of cellphone maker Motorola Mobility last year.
In a development that could also be related to this latest clash, Google had a high-profile spat with e-commerce leader Alibaba last September. (previous post) In that instance, Google pressured Alibaba’s smartphone manufacturing partner to halt production of an Alibaba-developed smartphone that used a variant of Android.
Google took its action due to its displeasure over the way that Alibaba had modified the system, even though Android is technically free and available to anyone who wants to use it. Needless to say, Alibaba was quite vocal in its unhappiness about the situation, and I wouldn’t be at all surprised if it used its government influence to complain to the MIIT.
In all fairness, the MIIT’s latest conclusion isn’t really a huge surprise, since Android has quickly risen to become the world’s dominant OS for smartphones since its introduction several years ago. Some might say its current domination of the market is somewhat similar to Microsoft’s (Nasdaq: MSFT) domination of the PC operating system market for decades with its Windows franchise. And yet neither the MIIT nor any other Chinese government agency ever took any action against Microsoft.
So the next question becomes: Where is all of this heading, and should Google be concerned? The answer is probably that the MIIT will announce some new policies to promote the development of homegrown smartphone operating systems, which could include some symbolic limitations on Google. But at the same time, domestic smartphone makers like Huawei, ZTE (HKEx: 763; Shenzhen: 000063) and Lenovo (HKEx: 992) are too dependent on Android right now to take any drastic action that could undermine their competitive position in the global marketplace. Accordingly, look for this latest clash to perhaps build up over the next year, before finally subsiding with little or no negative impact on Google or Android.
Bottom line: Google’s latest clash with Beijing over the dominance of its Android smartphone OS is likely to pass over the next year with little or no major effect on Android.
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