The Diplomat’s Zachary Keck calls attention to two recent reports which detail the growing use of Android devices in China, a trend that may help to explain why Apple issued an apology for its customer service policies on Monday:
To be clear, the extraordinary growth of the Android OS in China is coming at Apple’s expense. Tech in Asia claims that many research groups believe that 86 percent of new mobile devices being sold in China run on an Android OS compared to just 12 percent that run on Apple’s iOS system.
All of this is very troubling for Apple, which has said that it expects China to become its largest and most important market in the years ahead. It’s hardly surprising then that the company feels the need to make a low-end iPhone to appeal to consumers in emerging markets like China.
The real key to improving Apple’s position in China, however, will be reaching a deal with China’s largest mobile service provider, China Mobile, in which the latter starts offering its customers— who at over 700 million people are roughly twice as large as the entire U.S. population— iPhones and related Apple products.
There has been some movement on this front as of late but all of it would have been at severe risk if the rift between Apple and the Chinese government had been allowed to fester.
