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Android TVs are available across the budget range in India, with brands like Sony, Vu and Hisense offering premium products with Play Store available for apps. Google’s monopoly in the Android TV segment has worked against the company in India. The Competition Commission of India (CCI) has ordered the tech giant to settle its Android TV antitrust case and also make some wholesale changes to its policies for the TVs sold in the country.
Android or Google TV has been the default OS running on millions of smart TVs in the market, except for Samsung, Xiaomi, the Amazon Fire TV Stick or even the Apple TV. But this dominance has played against Google, because the antitrust body has observed the conditions placed on the TV brands that power their products with Android TV. Android TV Changes In India: What Google Has To Do The CCI settlement comes with a fine of around Rs 20 crore for Google but there are bigger changes in the offing that will affect the consumers looking to buy smart TVs in the country.
Google mandates brands to pre-load the Android TV smart TVs with Play Store as the default app store which gives it direct control on how the big screen uses different apps. Also, there have been cases where sideloading on Android TVs have been discouraged, but now the company will be forced to comply with these measures. The new ruling will force Google to stop these practices and give its partners a free hand on which OS they want to use on their TVs and which app store they would like to offer to the consumers.
This means, the next time you head over to buy a smart TV in India, you will need to check with the seller what OS and app store is provided on the product. Google has been ordered to reach out to its partners and inform them of these new rules, which allows them to bundle their own OS platform on the big screen. Brands like Sony, TCL, Vu, Hisense and Philips among others have their Android TV products available in the market.
Getting Android out of the box allowed them to set up the TV using their Google account, just like how it works on smartphones. Smart TVs Get More Power, Will It Work? Google losing its power with Android TVs in the country comes with a mixed set of responses. Yes, local brands will claim it as a victory but the OS and the app ecosystem on Android and Apple OS are a lot bigger than other platforms, and if people don’t get the right support for their TVs, expect them to prefer the Android TV versions over the other experiences.
After all, Android has been the de-facto platform for mobiles and gradually TVs have also seen its impact. So, changing the dynamics of what a smart TV does will rely on these companies who will need to invest in their own OS team or rely on third-party platforms with a growing user base..
