With the rapid growth of Android in the US market last year, and the Android Nexus One being announced today some people are saying Android will become the top smartphone platform.
I’m not disagreeing with them, but let’s pause for a moment and look outside the US and Europe at how successful Android has been so far in Asia.
Sure anyone can import an unlocked GSM Android mobile and put their Sim card in it, but the majority of customers buy their phone from a mobile carrier or an electronics store.
For the purposes of this article I looked at the availability of Android devices from retail or carriers in different parts of Asia (not market share).
(Green is good availability, Blue is limited availability, Red is little or no availability.)
China (including Hong Kong):
Android mobiles from HTC and recently Dell are available in both mainland China and Hong Kong. Thus this region gets a Green color.
The chinese mobile companies making copies of popular western company designs (Apple, Nokia, Sony Ericsson, etc.) have gotten faster and better at making clone hardware, but they still seem to favor using Windows Mobile as their OS. It would be interesting what might happen if the clone companies become more accustomed to Android, that is free to use. If they started putting Android, which is arguably a better platform, on the cloned hardware they could become popular mobile manufacturers.
Singapore:
Android mobiles are available from multiple carriers (Starhub and Singtel) in Singapore.
Malaysia:
Android mobiles are not currently available from a carrier in Malaysia.
(Updated) Malaysia:
Thanks to a couple readers posting in the comments about mobile carrier Celcom offering Android mobiles in Malaysia. However owners of Android devices bought in Malaysia are unhappy due to Android Marketplace being removed from the handsets.
Japan:
Only one HTC Android mobile, the HTC Magic, is available from Docomo in Japan. Docomo started offering it to try and stop the loss of customers to rival Softbank, that has iPhone exclusivity. A friend that works at HTC Japan hinted to me there likely wouldn’t be any further Android devices for a while, at least from HTC.
To bring the status up to Green at least one other Android mobile should be available preferably on another carrier. Maybe Motorola could introduce it’s Milestone or other manufacturer could negotiate with Softbank or Docomo.
In general a big problem with the Japanese mobile industry is that it’s controlled by the carriers. The carriers specify what features, software, and design they want in the mobile and the manufactures makes it for them. With the iPhone’s success in Japan this is slowly changing however. Stefan Constantinescu described the problems facing the Japanese mobile industry in detail on IntoMobile, though I disagree with his preference for clamshell flip phones.
Taiwan:
Taiwan is the home country of HTC, Google’s closest mobile hardware partner. Thus pretty much every Android mobile from HTC is available in Taiwan.
Korea:
Korea is home to Samsung and LG. These two companies tend to be platform agnostic, using any mobile OS they feel is appropriate for their device. This leads Samsung and LG to offer mobiles with a variety of platforms including: Windows Mobile, Samsung/LG specific mobile Linux, Symbian, and Android. Thus both Samsung and LG have made Android mobiles which are available in South Korea.
India:
Android Mobiles are available from Vodafone and Bharti Airtel in India. However Android struggles in India due to it’s price and lack of 3G networks to access Google’s services.
In conclusion if you’re an Android fan, Malaysia is not a good place to live. Though in theory you could walk or drive across the bridge from Malaysia to Singapore and buy yourself an Android mobile from Singapore, then head back to Malaysia. :)
Here are unhappy Android owners in Malaysia http://www.google.com/support/forum/p/Android+Market/thread?tid=33e61da509b9a2c6&hl=en
there’s HTC Hero & HTC Magic in Malaysia under telco Celcom
Thanks for the comments @Chyan and @10ha. The post has been updated.
In Indonesia, HTC Magic is offered by country biggest, Telkomsel, but haven’t gone well in term of sales. Also Android Marketplace is being removed from the handset.
It’s rumored that other big operators, like Indosat or XL will bring other product(s) powered by Android in 2010.
in the Philippines, android phones are not really doing well. HTC, being the popular distributor of the Android OS is not readily available here in retail stores despite the being close to Taiwan geographically.
the only android phone available via carrier is the HTC Magic and is made available by SMART Communications (SMART).
most of the phones we use here are not acquired from carriers but retailers so other android phones may be available through importers.
and most Filipinos (Philippine citizens), are not into smartphones..
you can see the carriers’ phone offerings in these links.
http://smart.com.ph/phones/Default.aspx?t=1
http://site.globe.com.ph/mobile_phones_and_gadgets?sid=S0tsW8uxpRYAAFx0HQ4AAAEEe
http://www.suncellular.com.ph/postpaid_handsets_by_manufacturer.php
the market is dominated by Nokia.
Android phones in Thailand also don’t come with Android Market which render the phones totally… not worth it.
I’m from Malaysia and I’m an Android fan. I would like to clarify that Malaysia is in fact a good place to live in, regardless of whatever perception your article may convey. As of this writing, All three major Telcos (Maxis, DiGi & Celcom) are carrying Android phones. And guess what? We now have Market available through HTC Legend and the upcoming Desire. Oh and we have a pretty decent 3G and HSPA coverage too.
The lack of Market in previous Android phones did not deter us Malaysians. We painstakingly learned English and studied the method of rooting our sets. We even spoofed our carriers to get access to the illusive paid market. And the Nexus 1 is quite a common phone over here despite Malaysia is not among the countries where the phone is officially released.
Here, I’ll point you to some sites where you can do some research on the Malaysian Android community:-
http://www.legendroid.com
http://forum.lowyat.net/Android
http://www.codeandroid.my/
Cleave, Thanks for the comment, and update about android’s status in Malaysia.
Note, that when this article was written (January), the state of Android mobile availability was different. Now Android mobiles are more widespread than earlier in the year.
Also the article was looking at android mobile availability from a mobile carrier, of course technical users can import an unlocked Nexus One or other Android mobile and put their sim in it, or modify the software to access the Market place, but that wasn’t what the article was looking at. It was looking at an average customer, and if they could go to a store and purchase an Android mobile. Thanks for your comment.
Thank you for your quick response. And I did note the date the article was published. Therefore, I would like to challenge your statement of what this article was looking at. Allow me to quote it from your reply, “An average customer, and if they could go to a store and purchase an Android phone”.
The second link I provided in my post above actually contains historical threads on the timeline of Android phones when they officially hit our shores. Seeing that perhaps you’re too busy with other matters, let me just pinpoint to a couple of these threads. Exhibit ‘A’ is HTC Magic. The thread can be found here (http://forum.lowyat.net/topic/946224). It was posted way back in Feb 2009 and the official release date for Malaysia was somewhere in June 2009. Next is HTC Hero. The Hero thread is here (http://forum.lowyat.net/topic/1152212) and it was posted on September 2009, right after a Telco (Celcom) officially launched it. These two dates were before this article was published. They proved that average Malaysian did in fact could purchase Android phones either through a Telco or a walk-in store way before January 2010. If that was what the article intended to look at, then it has been terribly misinformed.
As you have graciously accepted updates from your readers, I humbly urge you to treat my feedback the same way.
I’m from Malaysia
ahem ,
HTC Legend is already officially here and comes with Android Market and I’m using one -________-
27 th May , official release of HTC Desire in Malaysia..
suck on that , Malaysia = nice place to live after all
Now just to find that app ( *touch* on to Android Market)