Android in China

Google obviously wants to dominate online markets in Asia, they surely want to become especially dominant in the Chinese market as they already are in the US and Europe. China is a huge market that is growing so incredibly fast it’s hard to keep up. There are 601 million mobile phone users in China at the moment, and between January and June 2008 there were 53.3 million more mobile users.

You don’t need me to tell you, that is phenomenal. The other scary thing is that the Chinese mobile operator China Mobile dominates the market, with 414 million customers. Not bad, I can think of some mobile companies in the US and Europe who would be happy with that!

The facts keep coming. Whilst mobile internet usage is growing in the west, big growth hasn’t really started in China. Only 12% of all those 601 million users have mobile internet. The main reason for this is that there is not really a 3G network, not a single 3G licence has been issued to the big mobile operators in China. Plans are however afoot to issue licenses in the next six months.

So what does this all mean for Android in China. China Mobile are members of the Open Handset Alliance and there were plans for an Android based phone to be released in China by the end of the year. But because of delays this hasn’t materialized. The rumours are that the phone will be released about half way into 2009, but we will have to wait and see.

All this is obviously very important for Google. If Android can become the favored open source mobile platform in China, Google will have one foot in the door of a huge market that is growing spectacularly. Mobile really is a very large part of the future of the internet and if Google can dominate an emerging technology in a rapidly emerging market the sky is the limit.