A recent report from The Information, Google plans to head back to China after a long five-year absence. This comes after the search giant left China’s mainland over censorship issues. Google hopes to appeal to Chinese government and get approved to distribute a special Google Play mobile app for Chinese consumers. The California tech company also offers more plans to help it design and local store.
Google to make a big return to China
Chinese customers currently use Android operating system, but it’s a modified version that is a derivative of Android Open Source Project. It comes without services and apps that most countries have access to. Google Play stores are not available in China. Now that Play is coming to China, the search giant is working with the country’s officials and its censorship laws. Google is willing to follow local laws and block apps at the local government’s requests. The company also hopes to help China-based developers to distribute their apps throughout the world.
Google also strives to bring Android Wear in the China market. The tech giant hopes to bring the its wearable to China, even though it knows there are many AOSP-based wearables already available in the Chinese market.
Google wants to tap into the vast Chinese market
Like Apple, Google understands the tech market in China is huge and a large number of smartphone shipments come from Chinese consumers. Although the Android brand is in China, the company isn’t making much money from the country’s consumer base.
The Information’s report comes from unnamed sources and the search company has yet to confirm if the report it true. Late last year, the same publication reported the search giant would launch a revamped version of the Play app store in China. This new report gives the earlier report more validity.
