Most of you know that Android OS is free and open source where most of the developers get chance and choice to develop apps of their own choice.
From a user point of view it seems very easy to develop an Android device for anyone as OS is free, but is really Android OS free for manufacturers???
As per reports, Android OS is free itself but not apps under Google’s suite is free, Google charges for apps like Gmail, Hangouts, Maps and YouTube and so on as which are the part of a license called “Google Mobile Service (GMS)”.
A manufacture who is planning to built smartphones has to buy license from Google to use them, manufacture also cannot offer Play Store on their smartphones unless they get proper license from Google.
Google charges very similar to Microsoft who charge from its OEMs to use Windows or Windows Phone. Google charges license on per-device basis. Like if a manufacturer is planning to ship 100,000 units of smartphone then Google will charge 75 cents for each device or in another word Google will charge $75,000 in total. In recent reports, it has been reveled that Google is selling millions of GMS license everyday.
It is also revealed that there is no pre-defined process of acquiring GMS license, so its also not easy to get GMS license and Google decides to whom they would like to give license and whom not to.
