Android Will Suffer If Google Leaves China

Forrester Research analyst Charles Golvin said it’s not so simple to quantify: “I don’t know what Android-based device sales are like in China, but I expect Android would be a very, very meaningful player there,” Golvin said. “Android as a [open source] platform is attractive because it’s cheap and it’s free, so it’s natural that phone OEMs would adopt it there.”

Where it gets dicey, Golvin said, is the difference between an “Android phone” and an “Android with Google” phone. To date, Android phones are being sold in the US with the Google branding on the device, which means Gmail, Google Maps, Google Talk and Google Voice are bundled in the phone.

“Google’s potential departure from the Chinese market doesn’t affect – careful wording here – Android as a platform for phone makers, but for the delivery of Android handsets that carriers want to sell and enable Google Web services on, yes, absolutely you wouldn’t be able to access all of those Google backend services.” Golvin said.

Golvin did agree with Enderle that Google could get a proxy to handle all of the Google Web services for Android devices in China. That wouldn’t solve only Google’s problems. Google currently only sells the Nexus One through its Webstore. If Google leaves China, consumers wouldn’t be able to purchase the smartphone in China, where Google planned to sell the device online as it does in the US.

Moreover, Golvin said that if Google leaves China it would kill the so-called “grey market,” where consumers buy a Nexus One, take it to China and fit it with a SIM card from China Mobile. “However it behaved would be completely unpredictable,” he said.

Google’s keeping quiet

Google doesn’t have answers to these questions. Asked about the impact of a Google exit from China on Android, a Google spokesperson told eWEEK: “We will be meeting with the Chinese government over the coming weeks and hope to find a mutually agreeable resolution, so it’s too early to speculate.”

Many questions clearly cloud the viability of Android software and Google Web services in China, but there is also the hardware manufacturing side to consider. Chinese handset makers Huawei and ZTE support Android and the country’s Lenovo introduced LePhone at CES 2010.

Smartphones form the crux of the Android movement, but Google and partners have designs for the platform beyond handsets.

Chinese-based computer makers such as Asus and Acer have Android-based netbooks in the pipeline and there is talk these companies are considering making machines with Google’s Chrome Operating System.

Any souring of the relationship between Google and China’s government extends to the business sector there, which would quash the extension of Android from smartphones to other computing form factors.