Google is spearheading its campaign to capture the world markets and the latest development in this front is an announcement that Android will be made available on low end phones in the emerging markets of India and China. If you thought that Android is only for smartphones and high end ones at that, then your opinion is going to change now. This announcement can be clearly seen as Google’s strategy to boost the competition with its rivals – Apple and Nokia.
In a recent interview with New York Times, Andy Rubin, vice president for engineering at Google was heard saying that the revolution in the emerging markets is waiting to happen. To meet this purpose, Google is offering some incentives to the Android app developers. Google will offer tools that will make it possible for the developers to sell subscriptions, virtual goods and other items from within their apps on the mobile phone. Huge markets will be made available to Google through its low end phones and this will be used by them to open up new vistas of advertising. The total mobile ad market will grow to $13.5 billion in 2013, from less than $1 billion last year, according to the research firm Gartner.
Google trails behind the iPhone with regards to apps as the iPhone has over 200,000 apps compared to 65,000 apps for the Android. It hopes that the gap will reduce with this new feature. Google also plans to put the Android OS on Huawei and LG phones in Asia and Europe. Android had given a breath of fresh air to HTC and HP when the Android was predominantly launched by these mobile manufacturers.
Smaller Chinese phone manufacturers, who constitute about 10% of the market, are also making use of the Android to sell its phones. Also, a Gartner report suggests that the Android will eclipse the iOS by 2012 to trial behind Nokia’s Symbian OS.
Adding to this is the leading trend of touch phone mobile phones. The market for them is touted to double in 2010 compared to 2009. If you are Motorola and Sony Ericsson, you have every reason to worry. Android, which was a differentiator, could well be on its way to become a leveler. With low cost phones also making use of Android, the other companies will have to pull up their socks if they also want to stay in the race with Android.
From what I perceive, Nokia has a strong foothold in the emerging markets. But the next big thing right now is smartphone. Nokia has not really made its presence felt in the smartphone segment and with Android gaining global popularity quickly, its Symbian OS is outdated. That said, there is still time for Nokia to think of a strategy to counter this attack from Google. What if Nokia decides to adopt Android on its phones? It might be able to sell its products in a bigger market. The iPhone is pretty costly for people from emerging markets to purchase. By the time people begin to afford the iPhone, the Android based smartphones will already have created a strong presence in these markets.
Your thoughts on this?
interesting analysis… Nokia using Android ??!!! Interesting proposition.. It will be huge if that happens. But I doubt it. Nokia i agree needs to do more with its Symbian OS, but adopting Android and totally shelving Symbian is something I dont think will happen.
Symbian is something that Nokia has developed through the years. Nokia needs to revamp the OS to make it a competitor in the global market. Now, Nokia using the Android platform is an idea that I had. True, it might not materialize as Nokia would staunchly try to propagate its own in house OS, but it would be interesting if it does do that.