[gress]

Google hasn't 'grabbed the majority of smartphone share'. They sell no smartphones themselves and they license software components that are used in less than half of smartphones.

[edit: as usual, a factually correct counterpoint to the marketing spin about Android gets downvoted]

[adventured]

Microsoft sold no computers themselves while Windows held 95% of the personal computer market.

Android is under Google's control. They purchased it, evolved it, put the resources into making it into the monopoly mobile OS that it is today with over 80% of the global market. It was Google's backing and strategy that made Android's market share dominance possible.

So yes, Google has grabbed the majority of smartphone share. Everyone understands who controls Android, even mighty Samsung has absolutely no confusion over this point.

[millstone]

If a market is to be anything, it must be people buying and selling stuff. Unlike MS and Windows, nobody buys Android, and Google certainly doesn't sell it.

Google built Android but does not control it. What Google controls is:

1. The Android marks, like the green robot

2. The closed-source Google services: Play, Maps, etc.

Those are Google's levers. Any smartphone vendor who wants to use the above must agree to other terms, like making Google the default search engine.

In Russia or China, Android phones without Google services are very common. Google can hardly be said to control those markets.

[gress]

Only half of the 'android' phones use GMS which is licensed from Google. The others are based on AOSP, and Google has no control over those.

Since Android as a whole has around 80% market share globally, Google controls at best 40%'of it.

Samsung is a GMS licensee, and is certainly beholden to Google for their version of Android, but this in no way supports the claim that Google has grabbed the majority market share. They simply have not.

It serves Google for people to think they have more control over the market than they actually do, but it's bad for everyone else.

[snarf]

Also, the comparison of Android to Windows breaks down when you look at smartphone profit share. Unlike Windows, OEMs don't pay to license AOSP or GMS. While Google monetizes GMS through mobile advertising in their apps, the majority of the profits in the industry are from hardware sales/carrier subsidies (unlike the PC business which is mostly a commodity business). That is to say that most of the profits on "Android" are captured by companies like Samsung, HTC, and Amazon.

[jfoster]

Is Android not to smartphones as Windows is to PCs? Your point might be an interesting one, but you haven't explained it sufficiently.