Problem Android has to face
Problem Android has to face

Problems Android will have to face

With the rise of Android the shares of Google has rose high with Android alone having a global market share of 84.7 % whereas Chrome, the other operating system by Google has a share of around 45 %. Though with the rise of Android Google has earned a stable position in the market but it seems that the future of Android is not entirely bright. The article focuses on the problems Android will have to face.

Problem-Android-Has-To-face

The popularity of Android began with Samsung devices on which the operating system is an integral part. But from the Q2 results of this year it seems that the mobile division of the company is under threat. Though Samsung made a profit of more than $6 billion its mobile sales dropped to 30 % as compared to last year of the same quarter.
Not only Samsung, HTC and Sony are experiencing same havoc. Sales of HTC are declining and the mobile division of Sony already made a loss of $27 million in the last quarter. But however, LG is following a different route. It made a profit of $83.4 million in the mobile division combined with a 16 % increase in sales in contrast to its counterparts.

Coming to Nokia whose hardware division has been acquired by Microsoft reported a sale of 5.8 million phones since it took over shows a modest increase of sale as compared to the same quarter last year mostly due to the introduction of budget and mid-range phones in the market.

Google is no longer making any money from China which is a house to several OEMs like Xiaomi, Oppo, OnePlus and others. After a Chinese hacking attack, it refused to continue censoring search engine results and a lengthy dispute saw most of the services to be banned in China. This has certainly affected Google and since it does not want the same thing to happen in other markets so it has launched Android One mostly for the Indian market. Android One will combine with the Indian OEMs like Micromax, Lava, Spice and Karbonn through which Google can capture a large market share in India and expand its territory by making sure that these OEMs carry Google services .
The vision of the OEMs and Google are not the same. While the OEMs want to sell their handsets and make profit from the hardware whereas Google wants its services to be used in as many devices as possible to gain as much money from advertising.

By the increase growth of internet usage in all the mobile devices, the invention of Android was a far intelligent method introduced by Google for maintaining its dominance in the market. In lieu of paying Apple a huge amount to be its default search engine, it gave most of the OEMs a platform to use by setting up a proposition of having the free to use software. But in return, it had to use all the services provided by Google and to let them collect all the information. As a result of this, Google retained its top position in search by taking in all the data from its users and gained insights that all other search engines desperately wants.

Moreover, Google has pushed down the prices of the hardware of its Nexus and Motorola without separating the OEMs. But again somewhere in the near future there may be such a time when the OEMs realize that their interests are differing than what Android is delivering and when Android would fail to deliver according to the changing needs there might be questions popping up about the quality of service that Google is rendering.

In the developing countries like China and India where the growth of smartphones is becoming vast, they can easily curtail the need for Google’s services on their OEMs. Again the fate of the best selling smartphone companies like HTC, Sony, LG, etc. largely depend on the software. As long as Android is providing services according to the current needs, the market sales of the smartphones would rise. But once it stops being smart and innovative and when other competing operating systems make a cut over it, the smartphones would either switch their software or their market share will decline. Though the chances of being toppled by any other OS is not pretty much soon but Android must continue adding value for its users and keep a pace with time.

Anik is an IT professional and Data Science Enthusiast. He loves to spend a lot of time testing and reviewing the latest gadgets and software. He likes all things tech and his passion for smartphones is only matched by his passion for Sci-Fi TV Series.