Google controls China's smartphone sector

Agencies via Shanghai Daily, March 6, 2013

Google has too much control over China's smartphone industry via its Android mobile operating system and has discriminated against some local firms. [File Photo]

Google Inc has too much control over China's smartphone industry via its Android mobile operating system and has discriminated against some local firms, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology has said in a white paper.

The white paper, authored by the research arm of the ministry, also said China had the ability to create its own mobile operating system.

"Our country's mobile operating system research and development is too dependent on Android," the paper said. "While the Android system is open source, the core technology and technology roadmap is strictly controlled by Google."

The paper said Google had discriminated against some Chinese companies developing their operating systems by delaying the sharing of codes. Google had also used commercial agreements to restrain the business development of mobile devices of these companies, it added.

A Google spokesman in China declined to comment.

The ministry did not recommend any specific policies, regulatory actions or other measures.

Analysts said the white paper, which lauded Chinese companies such as Baidu Inc, Alibaba Group and Huawei Technologies for creating their own systems, could be a signal to the industry that regulations against Android are on the horizon.

Last September, the launch of a smartphone between Acer Inc and a unit of Alibaba Group was canceled due to what Alibaba said was pressure from Google on Acer.

Technology research firm IDC has estimated that China surpassed the US as the world's biggest smartphone market in 2012, taking 26.5 percent of all smartphones shipped.

Android has been Google's bright spot in China. In the third quarter of last year, Android accounted for 90 percent of all mobile operating systems in China while Apple Inc's iOS system was at just 4.2 percent.