Nokia
he company has had various industries in over 150 years. It was founded as a pulp mill and had long been associated with rubber and cables, but since the 1990s focuses on large-scale telecommunications infrastructures, technology development, and licensing.Nokia is a notable major contributor to the mobile telephony industry, having assisted in the development of the GSM, 3G and LTE standards (and currently in 5G), and is best known for having been the largest worldwide vendor of mobile phones and smartphones for a period. After a partnership with Microsoft and market struggles, its mobile phone business was eventually bought by the former, creating Microsoft Mobile as its successor in 2014. After the sale, Nokia began to focus more extensively on its telecommunications infrastructure business and on the Internet of things, marked by the divestiture of its Here mapping division and the acquisition of Alcatel-Lucent, including its Bell Labs research organization. The company then also experimented ith virtual reality and digital health, the latter through the purchase of Withings. The Nokia brand has since returned to the mobile and smartphone market through a licensing arrangement with HMD Global.Nokia continues to be a major patent licensor for most large mobile phone vendors. As of 2018 Nokia is the world's third largest network equipment manufacturer.
The company was viewed with national pride by Finns, as its successful mobile phone business made it by far the largest worldwide company and brand from Finland. At its peak in 2000, during the telecoms bubble, Nokia alone accounted for 4% of the country's GDP, 21% of total exports, and 70% of the Helsinki Stock Exchange market capital.
Microsoft Mobile
Microsoft Mobile was a subsidiary of Microsoft involved in the development and manufacturing of mobile phones. Based in Espoo, Finland, it was established in 2014 following the acquisition of Nokia's Devices and Services division by Microsoft in a deal valued at €5.4 billion, which was completed in April 2014.[2] Nokia's then-CEO, Stephen Elop, joined Microsoft as president of its Devices division following the acquisition, and the acquisition was part of Steve Ballmer's strategy to turn Microsoft into a "devices and services" company. Under a 10-year licensing agreement, Microsoft Mobile held rights to sell feature phones running the S30+platform under the Nokia brand.
Originally Microsoft had established a major partnership with Nokia in 2011, in which the company exclusively produced smartphones using the Windows Phone platform, and promoted Microsoft services on its feature phone products (including Bing search). Microsoft also licensed Nokia Maps data for its own mapping services. While Nokia's resultant Lumia range had the largest market share out of all Windows Phone vendors, Nokia's overall market share was falling rapidly due to competition from other major vendors, resulting in a dire financial situation. In September 2013, Microsoft announced its acquisition of Nokia's devices and services businesses, which closed with the formation of a Finnish subsidiary, Microsoft Mobile. On smartphones, the Nokia name was phased out in favour of Microsoft branding on future Lumia products.
History
1990–2010
Following Simo Vuorilehto's appointment as CEO, a major restructuring was planned. With 11 groups within the company, Vuorilehto divested industrial units he deemed as un-strategic. Nokian Tyres (Nokian Renkaat), a tyre producer originally formed as a division of Finnish Rubber Works in 1932, split away from Nokia Corporation in 1988. Two years later, in 1990, Finnish Rubber Works followed suit. In 1991 Nokia sold its computer division, Nokia Data, to UK-based International Computers Limited (ICL), the precursor of Fujitsu Siemens. Investors thought of this as financial trouble and Nokia's stock price sank as a result. Finland was now also experiencing its worst recession in living memory, and the collapseof the Soviet Union, a major customer, made matters worse.
Vuorilehto quit in January 1992 and was replaced by Jorma Ollila, who had been the head of the mobile phone business from 1990 and advised against selling that division. Ollila decided to turn Nokia into a 'telecom-oriented' company, and he eventually got rid of divisions like the power business. This strategy proved to be very successful and the company grew rapidly in the following years. Nokia's operating profit went from negative in 1991 to $1 billion in 1995 and almost $4 billion by 1999.[25]
Nokia's first fully portable mobile phone after the Mobira Senator was the Mobira Cityman 900 in 1987. Nokia assisted in the development of the GSM mobile standard in the 1980s, and developed the first GSM network with Siemens, the predecessor to Nokia Siemens Network. The world's first GSM call was made by Finnish prime minister Harri Holkeri on 1 July 1991, using Nokia equipment on the 900 MHz band network built by Nokia and operated by Radiolinja. In November 1992, the Nokia 1011 launched, making it the first commercially available GSM mobile phone.
Salora Oy as a Nokia subsidiary ended in 1989 when the division was merged into Nokia-Mobira Oy. The brand continued to be used for televisions until 1995.
On 12 June 1996, Nokia announced the sale of its television business to Canada/Hong Kong-based Semi-Tech Corporation. The television manufacturing plant in Germany closed down in September 1996. The sale included a factory in Turku, and the rights to use the Nokia, Finlux, Luxor, Salora, Schaub-Lorenz and Oceanic brands until the end of 1999.Some of these brands were later sold to other companies.
Nokia was the first to launch digital satellite receivers in the UK, announced in March 1997. In August 1997 Nokia introduced the first digital satellite receiver with Common Interface (CI) support.In 1998 Nokia became the chosen supplier to produce the world's first digital terrestrial television set-top boxes by British Digital Broadcasting (BDB), which was eventually launched as ONdigital.
In October 1998, Nokia overtook Motorola to become the best-selling mobile phone brand, and in December manufactured its 100 millionth mobile phone. A major reason why Nokia grew against its main competitors Motorola and Ericsson was that it managed to cater to the consumer youth market and fashion-oriented consumers, most significantly with the Nokia 5110 and 3210 handsets which featured a large range of colourful and replacable back-covers called Xpress-on.One of the earliest fashion phones in 1992, from Swiss watchmaker Swatch, was based on Nokia's 101 handset. The company would also form the Vertu division, creating luxury mobile handsets.
Nokia claimed in April 1996 its 447Xav and 447K monitors to be the first with stereo speakers and a sub-woofer In May 1999 Nokia introduced their first wireless LAN products.In January 2000 ViewSonic acquired Nokia Display Products, the division making displays for personal computers. On 26 April 2001 Nokia partnered with Telefonica to supply DSL modems and routers in Spain.
In 1998, Nokia co-founded Symbian Ltd. led by Psion to create a new operating system for PDAs and smart mobile phones as a successor of EPOC32. They released the Nokia 9210 Communicator running Symbian OS in 2001 and later that year created the Symbian Series 60 platform, later introducing it with their first camera phone, the Nokia 7650. Both Nokia and Symbian eventually became the largest smartphone hardware and software maker respectively, and in February 2004 Nokia became the largest shareholder of Symbian Ltd. Nokia acquired the entire company in June 2008 and then formed the Symbian Foundation as its successor.
In 1998 alone, the company had sales revenue of $20 billion making $2.6 billion profit. By 2000 Nokia employed over 55,000 people,[43] and had a market share of 30% in the mobile phone market, almost twice as large as its nearest competitor, Motorola.[44] The company was operating in 140 countries as of 1999. It was reported at the time that some people believed Nokia to be a Japanese company. Between 1996 and 2001, Nokia's turnover increased fivefold, from €6.5 billion to €31 billion.
The company would then be known as a successful and innovative maker of camera phones. The Nokia 3600/3650 was the first camera phone on sale in North America in 2003. In April 2005 Nokia partnered with German camera optics maker Carl Zeiss AG.That same month Nokia introduced the Nseries, which would become its flagship line of smart phones for the next six years. The Nokia N95 introduced in September 2006 became highly successful and was also awarded as "best mobile imaging device" in Europe in 2007.[49] Its successor the N82 featured a xenon flash,[50] which helped it win the award of "best mobile imaging" device in Europe in 2008.[51] The N93 in 2006 was known for its specialized camcorder and the twistable design that switches between clamshell and a camcorder-like position.[52] They were also well known for the N8 with a high resolution 12-megapixel sensor in 2010; the 808 PureView in 2012 with a 41-megapixel sensor; and the Lumia 920 flagship in 2012 which implemented advanced PureView technologies.[53]
Nokia was one of the pioneers of mobile gaming due to the popularity of Snake, which came pre-loaded on many products. In 2002, Nokia attempted to break into the handheld gaming market with the N-Gage.[54] Nokia's head of entertainment and media, Ilkka Raiskinen, once quoted "Game Boy is for 10-year-olds",[55] stating that N-Gage is more suited to a mature audience. However, the device was a failure, unable to challenge the dominant market leader Nintendo. Nokia attempted to revive N-Gage as a platform for their S60 smartphones, which eventually launched in 2008.[56]
In Q1 2004, Nokia's mobile phone handset market share steeply dropped to 28.9%, down from 34.6% a year earlier.[57] However by 2006 the company was steadily gaining again[58][59] and in Q4 2007 reached its all-time high figure of 40.4%.[60] Its smartphone market share in that quarter was 51%.[61] Nokia was the largest vendor at the time in all regions bar North America.[62]
Nokia launched mobile TV trials in 2005 in Finland with content provided by public broadcaster Yle. The services are based on the DVB-H standard. It could be viewed with the widescreen Nokia 7710 smartphone with a special accessory enabling it to receive DVB-H signals.[63] Nokia partnered with Arqiva and O2 to launch trials in the UK in September 2005.[64]
In 2005 Nokia developed a Linux-based operating system called Maemo, which shipped that year on the Nokia 770 Internet Tablet.
On 1 June 2006, Jorma Ollila became the company's chairman and retired as CEO, replaced by Olli-Pekka Kallasvuo.[65]
In August 2007, Nokia introduced Ovi, an umbrella name for the company's new Internet services which included the N-Gage platform and the Nokia Music Store.[66] The Ovi Store faced stiff competition against Apple's App Store when it was introduced in 2008.[67]
In October 2008 Nokia announced the Nokia 5800 XpressMusic, the first device to ship with the new touch-centric S60 5th Edition, also known as Symbian^1, the first iteration of the platform since the creation of the Symbian Foundation. In November 2008 Nokia announced it would end mobile phone sales in Japan because of low market share.[68] Nokia's global mobile phone market share peaked in 2008 at 38.6 percent.[69] The same year, Nokia announced the acquisition of Trolltech and its Qt software development.[70] Qt was a central part of Nokia's strategy until 2011, and it was eventually sold in 2012.[71]
Nokia briefly returned to the computer market with the Booklet 3G netbook in August 2009.
2010–2014[edit]
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In late 2009 and in 2010, the music-focused Xseries and consumer-focused Cseries were introduced respectively.In April 2010 Nokia introduced its next flagship mobile device, the Nokia N8, which would be the first to run on Symbian^3.[73] However it was delayed for many months which tarnished the company's image,[74] especially after the failure of its previous flagship N97 and tougher competition from Apple and the rising Google. On 10 September 2010, Olli-Pekka Kallasvuo was fired as CEO and it was announced that Stephen Elop from Microsoft would take Nokia's CEO position, becoming the first non-Finnish director in Nokia's history.[75] It as claimed that investors pressed Nokia's board to recruit an outsider to shake up management and break from the traditional "Nokia way".[76] Ollila had also announced that he would step down as Nokia chairman by 2012.[77] On 11 March 2011 Nokia announced that it had paid Elop a $6 million signing bonus as "compensation for lost income from his prior employer", on top of his $1.4 million annual salary.[78]
The old Symbian OS became completely open source in February 2010.[79] However, in November 2010 it was announced that the Symbian Foundation was closing and that Nokia would take back control of the Symbian operating system under closed licensing.[80] By now Nokia was the only remaining company using the platform, along with carrier NTT DoCoMo in Japan, after both Samsung and Sony Ericsson moved to Android. Meanwhile, in 2010 for Nokia's Linux ambitions, Nokia collaborated with Intel to form the MeeGo project, after the merger of Nokia's own Maemo and Intel's Moblin.
Nokia's Symbian platform that had been the leading smartphone platform in Europe and Asia for many years was quickly becoming outdated and difficult for developers after the advent of iOS and Android. To counter this, Nokia planned to make their MeeGo Linux operating system, under development, the company's flagship on smartphones. Shortly after Elop's CEO tenure began, the Nokia board green-lit him the ability to change the company's mobile phones strategy, including changing operating systems.[81] Veteran Anssi Vanjoki, head of the smartphones division, left the company around this time.[82] His final appearance was at Nokia World 2010 when the Nokia E7 and other Symbian^3 devices were introduced.[83]
On 11 February 2011, Nokia announced a "strategic partnership" with Microsoft, under which it would adopt Windows Phone 7 as its primary operating system on smartphones, and integrate its services and platforms with its own, including Bing as search engine, and integration of Nokia Maps data into Bing Maps. Elop stated that Nokia chose not to use Android because of an apparent inability to "differentiate" its offerings, with critics also noting that his past ties to Microsoft may have also influenced the decision.[84][85][86]Although the MeeGo "Harmattan"-based N9 was met with a highly positive reception in 2011, Nokia had already decided to end development on MeeGo and solely focus on its Microsoft partnership, although the CEO said that the N9's "innovations" will live on in the future,[87] which eventually made their way on the Asha platform in 2013.[88] After the announcement of the Microsoft partnership, Nokia's market share deteriorated; this was due to demand for Symbian dropping when consumers realized Nokia's focus and attention would be elsewhere.[89]
The company posted a large loss for the second quarter of 2011 - only their second quarterly loss in 19 years.[90] Nokia's first Windows Phone flagship was the Lumia 800, which arrived in November 2011. Falling sales in 2011, which were not being improved significantly with the Lumia line in 2012, led to consecutive quarters of huge losses. By mid-2012 the company's stock price fell below $2.[91][92] CEO Elop announced cost-cutting measures in June by shedding 10,000 employees by the end of the year and the closure of the Salo manufacturing plant.[93] The Finnish prime minister also announced that the government won't save the company from an emergency state fund.[94] Around this time Nokia started a new project codenamed "Meltemi", a platform for low-end smartphones.[95] With the Microsoft alliance and under Elop's management, Nokia also had a renewed focus on the North American market where Nokia phones were, in stark contrast to the rest of the world, almost irrelevant for many years.[96][97] This strategy began in January 2012 with the introduction of the Nokia Lumia 900 smartphone in partnership with U.S. carrier AT&T.[98]
In March 2011, Nokia introduced a new corporate typeface called "Pure".[99] On 1 August 2011, Nokia announced that it would adopt a new three-digit naming system for mobile phone products and stop using letters, effectively ending the Nseries, Eseries, and short-lived Cseries. That same day the Nokia 500 was introduced with the new system.[100]Nokia last used three-digit names on analogue phones in the 1990s.[101]
When the Lumia 920 was announced in September 2012, it was seen by the press as the first high-end Windows Phone that could challenge rivals due to its advanced feature set. Elop said that the positive reaction to it had created a sense of hope and optimism in the company.[102] The company was also making gains in developing countries with its Asha series, which were selling strongly.[103] Although Nokia's smartphone sales and market share greatly increased throughout 2013, including in the North American market,[104] it was still not enough to avoid financial losses.[105] Ollila stepped down as chairman on 4 May 2012 and was replaced by Risto Siilasmaa.[106]
In September 2013 Nokia announced the sale of its mobile and devices division to Microsoft.[107] The sale was positive for Nokia to avoid further negative financial figures, as well as for Microsoft's CEO Steve Ballmer, who wanted Microsoft to produce more hardware and turn it into a devices and services company.[108] The Nokia chairman, Risto Siilasmaa, described the deal as rationally correct (in the best interests of Nokia shareholders), but emotionally difficult[109] - experts agree that Nokia would have been in a cash crisis had it not sold the division to Microsoft.[110][111] Analysts believe that Ballmer pushed for the buyout because of fears that Nokia was close to adopting Android and abandoning their alliance with Microsoft.[112][113] There had been speculation for long that Nokia was experimenting with Android at the time.[114] Indeed, in January 2014 the Nokia X was introduced which ran on a customised version of Android. It was a surprising and somewhat odd launch coming just weeks away from the finalisation of the Microsoft buyout.[115][116] Others, including Ballmer's successor Satya Nadella, felt that Microsoft thought merging their software teams with Nokia's hardware engineering and designs would "accelerate" growth of Windows Phone.[117] The sale was completed in April 2014, with Microsoft Mobile becoming the successor to Nokia's mobile devices division. Nokia also moved from its headquarters to another building complex located at Karaportti. At the time, Ballmer himself was retiring as Microsoft CEO and was replaced by Satya Nadella, who opposed the Nokia mobile phones purchase, along with chairman Bill Gates.[118]The purchased assets from Nokia were eventually written-off by Microsoft in 2015.[119]
By 2014, Nokia's global brand value according to Interbrand fell to 98th place,[120] a sharp slide from the 5th place it was in 2009.[121] Nokia's downfall in the mobile phone market has had different explanations from analysts, with many split about the CEO's decision to abandon its in-house operating system and adopting Windows Phone in 2011.[122] Many researchers have concluded that Nokia suffered from deep internal rivalries within the management.[123][124][125][126] Former employees claimed that the management became so swollen by the early success that they grew complacent over time.[127][128] Some from the Symbian developing team have claimed that the company's upper management rejected hundreds of potential innovations during the 2000s that they proposed, including entirely rewriting Symbian's code. One former Nokia employee claimed that the company was run as a "Soviet-style bureaucracy".[129]
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In July 2013, Nokia bought Siemens' stake in the Nokia Siemens Networks joint venture for $2.2 billion, turning it into a wholly owned subsidiary called Nokia Solutions and Networks,[130] until being rebranded as Nokia Networks soon after.[131] During Nokia's financial struggles, its profitable networking division with Siemens provided much of its income; thus, the purchase proved to be positive, particularly after the sale of its mobile devices unit.[132]
2014–2016
After the sale of its mobile devices division, Nokia focused on network equipment through Nokia Networks.
In October 2014, Nokia and China Mobile signed a US$970 million framework deal for delivery between 2014 and 2015.
On 17 November 2014, Nokia Technologies head Ramzi Haidamus disclosed that the company planned to re-enter the consumer electronics business as an original design manufacturer, licensing in-house hardware designs and technologies to third-party manufacturers. Haidamus stated that the Nokia brand was "valuable" but "is diminishing in value, and that's why it is important that we reverse that trend very quickly, imminently." The next day, Nokia unveiled the N1, an Android tablet manufactured by Foxconn, as its first product following the Microsoft sale. Haidamus emphasized that devices released under these licensing agreements would be held to high standards in production quality, and would "look and feel just like Nokia built it."[7] Nokia CEO Rajeev Suri stated that the company planned to re-enter the mobile phone business in this manner in 2016, following the expiration of its non-compete clause with Microsoft.[137]
According to Robert Morlino, the spokesman of Nokia Technologies, Nokia planned follow the brand-licensing model rather than direct marketing of mobile devices due to the sale of its mobile devices division to Microsoft.[138] The company took aggressive steps to revitalize itself, evident through its hiring of software experts, testing of new products and seeking of sales partners.[139] On 14 July 2015, CEO Rajeev Suri confirmed that the company would make a return to the mobile phones market in 2016.On 28 July 2015, Nokia announced OZO, a 360-degrees virtual reality camera, with eight 2K optical image sensors. The division behind the product, Nokia Technologies, claimed that OZO would be the most advanced VR film-making platform.[141] Nokia's press release stated that OZO would be "the first in a planned portfolio of digital media solutions," with more technologic products expected in the future.OZO was fully unveiled on 30 November in Los Angeles. The OZO, designed for professional use, was intended for retail for US$60,000; however, its price was decreased by $15,000 prior to release, and is listed on its official website as $40,000.[145]
On 14 April 2015, Nokia confirmed that it was in talks with the French telecommunications equipment company Alcatel-Lucent regarding a potential merger.[146] The next day, Nokia announced that it had agreed to purchase Alcatel-Lucent for €15.6 billion in an all-stock deal.[147] CEO Rajeev Suri felt that the purchase would give Nokia a strategic advantage in the development of 5G wireless technologies.[148][149] The acquisition created a stronger competitor to the rival firms Ericsson and Huawei,[150] whom Nokia and Alcatel-Lucent had surpassed in terms of total combined revenue in 2014. Nokia shareholders hold 66.5% of the new combined company, while Alcatel-Lucent shareholders hold 33.5%. The Bell Labs division was to be maintained, but the Alcatel-Lucent brand would be replaced by Nokia. In October 2015, following approval of the deal by China's Ministry of Commerce, the merger awaited approval by French regulators.[152] Despite the initial intent of selling the submarine cable division separately, Alcatel-Lucent later declared that it would not. The merger closed on 14 January 2016,[154] but was not complete until 3 November 2016. From the acquisition Nokia is now also the owner of the Alcatel mobile phone brand, which continues to be licensed to TCL Corporation.
On 3 August 2015, Nokia announced that it had reached a deal to sell its Here digital maps division to a consortium of BMW, Daimler AG and Volkswagen Group for €2.8 billion. The deal closed on 3 December 2015.
2016–present[edit]
On 26 April 2016, Nokia announced its intent to acquire French connected health device maker Withings for US$191 million. The company was integrated into a new Digital Health unit of Nokia Technologies.Nokia later wrote off the cost of the acquisition and in May 2018 the health unit was sold back to Éric Carreel, a Withings co-founder and former CEO.[159]
On 18 May 2016, Microsoft Mobile sold its Nokia-branded feature phone business to HMD Global, a new company founded by former Nokia executive Jean-Francois Baril, and an associated factory in Vietnam to Foxconn's FIH Mobile subsidiary. Nokia subsequently entered into a long-term licensing deal to make HMD the exclusive manufacturer of Nokia-branded phones and tablets outside Japan, operating in conjunction with Foxconn. The deal also granted HMD the right to essential patents and featurephone software. HMD subsequently announced the Android-based Nokia 6 smartphone in January 2017.[160][161] At Mobile World Congress, HMD additionally unveiled the Nokia 3 and Nokia 5 smartphones, as well as a re-imagining of Nokia's classic 3310 feature phone.[162][163] While Nokia has no investment in the company, they do have some input in the new devices.
On 28 June 2016 Nokia demonstrated for the first time a 5G-ready network.[164] In February 2017 Nokia carried out a 5G connection in Oulu, Finland using the 5GTF standard, backed by Verizon, on Intel architecture-based equipment.[165]
On 5 July 2017, Nokia and Xiaomi announced that they have signed a business collaboration agreement and a multi-year patent agreement, including a cross license to each company's cellular standard essential patents.[166]
In 2017, Nokia's brand value jumped 147 places to 188th place compared to 2016 in the Brand Finance ranking. Its rise was attributed to its health portfolio and new mobile phones developed by HMD Global.[167]
On 19 January 2018, Nokia signed a deal with NTT Docomo, Japan's largest mobile operator, to provide 5G wireless radio base stations in the country by 2020.[168]
On 29 January 2018, Nokia introduced the ReefShark line of 5G chipsets, claiming that it triples bandwidth to 84 Gbit/s.[169] It will be released by Q3 2018.[170] It also incorporates artificial intelligence technologies from Bell Labs.[171]
On 13 March 2018, Solidium, the investment arm of the Finnish government, purchased a 3.3% stake in Nokia valued at €844 million.[172]
On 7 May 2018, Nokia announced that it has acquired a California-based IoT startup, SpaceTime Insight.[173]
In May 2018, HMD Global announced refreshed models of its Nokia smartphones; the Nokia 2.1, 3.1, and 5.1.[174]
In January 2019, the Canadian government announced that it will provide C$40 million to support Nokia's research on 5G technology.[175]
History[edit]
With the acquisition of Nokia's devices and services division, Microsoft re-entered the smartphone market. In Microsoft's previous attempt, Microsoft Kin, a result of the acquisition of Danger, Inc., had been poorly received.[3][4]
2011–2013: Partnership between Microsoft and Nokia[edit]
In February 2011, Nokia CEO Stephen Elop and Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer jointly announced a major business partnership between the two companies, which would see Nokia adopt Windows Phone as the primary platform for its future smartphones, replacing both Symbian and MeeGo. The deal also included the use of Bing as the search engine on Nokia devices, and the integration of Nokia Maps into Microsoft's own mapping services.[5] Nokia announced that it would still release one device running the MeeGo platform in 2011, but that it would devote fewer resources to future development of the platform, and would phase out Symbian entirely.[5] Aligning with Microsoft had been considered a possibility by analysts, due to Elop's prior employment with the company.[6][7][8]
As Nokia was the largest mobile phone and smartphone manufacturer worldwide at the time,[9] it was suggested the alliance would help Windows Phone,[8] but from the beginning of 2011, until 2013, Nokia fell from #1 to #10 in smartphone sales.[10] In June 2011, Nokia was overtaken by Apple as the world's biggest smartphone maker by volume.[11][12] In Q2 2011, amid falling sales, Nokia posted a loss of €368 million, after having realized a profit of €227 million in Q2 2010. In September 2011, Nokia announced it would cut another 3,500 jobs worldwide, including the closure of its Cluj factory in Romania, after having cut as many as 7,000 the previous April.[13] In August 2011 Chris Weber, head of Nokia's subsidiary in the U.S., stated that "The reality is if we are not successful with Windows Phone, it doesn't matter what we do [elsewhere]. He further added, North America is a priority for Nokia […] because it is a key market for Microsoft.[14] On 26 October 2011, Nokia unveiled its first Windows Phone 7-based devices, the high-end Lumia 800 and the mid-range Lumia 710, at its Nokia World conference.[15][16] After this announcement, Nokia's share price fell about 14%, its biggest drop since July 2009.[17] Nokia's smartphone sales, which had been increasing, collapsed.[18]
Nokia reported sales "well above 1 million" of its Lumia line in 2011,[19][20] 2 million sales for the first quarter of 2012,[21] and 4 million for the second quarter of 2012,[22]when Nokia sold only 600,000 smartphones (Symbian and Windows Phone 7) in North America.[23] By comparison, Nokia had sold more than 30 million Symbian devices worldwide in Q4 2010[24] and the Nokia N8 alone had sold almost 4 million in its first quarter. In Q2 2012, 26 million iPhones and 105 million Android phones shipped, compared to only 6.8 million devices with Symbian and 5.4 million with Windows Phone.[25] In announcing an alliance with Groupon, Elop declared, "The competition... is not with other device manufacturers, it's with Google."[26] In June 2012, Nokia chairman Risto Siilasmaa told journalists that Nokia had a contingency plan in the event that Windows Phone failed, but did not specify what it was.[27][28]
On 8 February 2012, Nokia announced 4,000 layoffs at smartphone manufacturing plants in Europe by the end of 2012, to move assembly closer to component suppliers in Asia.[29] On 14 June 2012, Nokia announced 10,000 layoffs globally by the end of 2013[30] and that it would shut production and research sites in Finland, Germany, and Canada, in line with continuing losses and the stock price falling to its lowest point since 1996.[31] In total, Nokia laid off 24,500 employees by the end of 2013.[32] On 18 June 2012, Moody's downgraded Nokia's bond rating to junk status.[33] Nokia's CEO admitted that the company's inability to foresee rapid changes in the mobile phone industry was one of the major reasons for the problems.[34]On 4 May 2012, a group of Nokia investors filed a class action against the company, as a result of disappointing sales.[35] On 22 August 2012, it was reported that a group of Finnish Nokia investors were considering gathering signatures for the removal of Elop as CEO.[36] In December 2012, to cut costs during a period of falling revenues, Nokia announced that it would be selling its headquarters, Nokia House, for €170 million, and leasing the use of it back long-term.[37]
In January 2013, Nokia reported sales of 6.6 million smartphones for Q4 2012, consisting of 2.2 million Symbian and 4.4 million Lumia devices (Windows Phone 7 and 8).[38] In North America, only 700,000 mobile phones were sold, including smartphones. In May 2013, Nokia released the Asha platform for its low-end smartphone devices. The Verge commented that this might have been recognition on the part of Nokia that Windows Phones weren't selling at the bottom end of the smartphone market fast enough and that they might be "hedging their commitment" to the Windows Phone platform.[39] In the same month, Nokia announced its partnership with the world's largest cellular operator, China Mobile, to offer Nokia's new Windows-based phone, the Lumia 920, as the Lumia 920T, an exclusive Chinese variant. The partnership was a bid by Nokia to connect with China Mobile's 700 million-person customer base.[40]
Following the second quarter of 2013, Nokia reported an operating loss of €115 million (£98.8 million), with revenues falling 24% to €5.7 billion, despite Lumia's sales figures exceeding those of BlackBerry's handsets during the same period. Over the nine quarters prior to the second quarter of 2013, Nokia sustained €4.1 billion worth of operating losses. The company experienced particular problems in both China and the U.S.; in the former, Nokia's handset revenues were the lowest since 2002, while in the U.S., "Nokia continues to show no signs of recovery in the US market. High investments, high expectations, low results."[41] In July 2013, Nokia announced that Lumia sales were 7.4 million for the second quarter of the year – a record high,[42] but Windows Phones in general still lacked momentum and lacked global market share, although scoring progressively better than other competing mobile platforms such as BlackBerry.[43]
In June 2013, despite Nokia's falling commitment to the Windows Phone platform, Nokia's share of that market was a dominant 83.3% of all such phones sold;[44] and by October 2013, Nokia's Lumia line held over a 90% market share of all Windows Phones in use.[45] A part of the reason Nokia couldn't make a profit was that their low priced Nokia Lumia 520 dominated the market while high-end models barely sold.[46]
2013–2014: Acquisition of Nokia's mobile phone business[edit]
On 2 September 2013, Microsoft announced that it would acquire Nokia's mobile device business in a deal worth €3.79 billion, along with another €1.65 billion to license Nokia's portfolio of patents for 10 years; a deal totaling over €5.4 billion. Steve Ballmer considered the purchase to be a "bold step into the future" for both companies, primarily as a result of its recent collaboration. It was also part of Ballmer's long-term vision of transforming Microsoft into a "devices and services" company. Pending regulatory approval, the acquisition was originally expected to close in early 2014.[47][48] In an interview published in Helsingin Sanomat, former Nokia executive Anssi Vanjoki commented that the Microsoft deal was "inevitable" due to the "failed strategy" of Stephen Elop.[49]
In an Helsingin Sanomat interview from 2018, Nokia chairman Risto Siilasmaa revealed that Microsoft were also in talks to purchase HTC, another Windows Phone vendor, before they opted to purchase the Nokia business.[50]
In March 2014, it was announced that the acquisition of Nokia's mobile phone business would not be completed by the end of March as expected, but instead was delayed until April of that year due to problems with regulators in Asia.[51] The acquisition of Nokia's mobile phone business by Microsoft was closed on 25 April 2014 for "slightly more" than the originally stated €5.44 billion.[52] Nokia's mobile phone assets became a part of Microsoft Mobile, a new subsidiary of Microsoft based in Finland.[53][54]
While Microsoft licensed the Nokia brand under a 10-year agreement, Nokia agreed not to use its name on smartphones and to be subject to a non-compete clause preventing it from producing any mobile devices under the Nokia name through 31 December 2015. Microsoft acquired the Asha and Lumia brands as part of the deal, a license to use the Nokia name,[55] as well as the Nokia PureView, ClearBlack, Surge, Mural, and Symbian-related trademarks.[56][57] Further, the deal included the acquisition of 8,500 design-related patents by Microsoft, and license on 30,000 "utility" patents on a non-exclusive basis for 10 years.[58][59][60]
As part of the deal, a number of Nokia executives joined Microsoft: Stephen Elop became the head of Microsoft's devices team (which oversees products such as Xbox and Surface); Risto Siilasmaa replaced Elop as interim CEO, before the appointment of Rajeev Suri.[61][62][63][64]
On 17 July 2014, it was reported that a major round of layoffs, totaling over 18,000 across the entire company, would occur at Microsoft over the following year. The majority of these layoffs were related to the integration of Nokia's former staff into Microsoft, in an effort to reduce redundancy. It was also reported that Microsoft had ended future development of Nokia's Asha, Series 40, and X lines, in favor of focusing exclusively on Windows Phone.[65][66]
Shortly after the acquisition, Microsoft discontinued Nokia's smartwatch prototype, codenamed "Moonraker", dropping it in favour of the Microsoft Band.[67]
2014–2017: As a subsidiary of Microsoft, rebranding from Nokia to Microsoft, divestment and closure[edit]
2014[edit]
Rebranding started in 2014. In March 2014, Nokia Mail and Nokia Chat were closed, offering migration services to Microsoft's Outlook.com and Skype until April 2015.[68] All Nokia accounts were closed on 25 April 2015.[69][70][71] Most of Nokia's social media sites were rebranded as Microsoft Lumia[72][73][74][75] rather than Microsoft Mobile, to emphasize their focus on Windows Phone as opposed to other Nokia mobile phones. Windows Phone social network pages were rebranded as well,[76] Nokia Conversations being rebranded as Lumia Conversations,[77] and NokNok.tv as Lumia Conversations UK.[78]
The rebranding was not entirely consistent, as the Nokia Army, launched in 2012,[79][80] became the Spartan Nation. The support site for legacy phones, accessories, as well as other Nokia-branded devices and services, Nokia Discussions, was renamed the Microsoft Mobile Community.[81] In July 2014, it was reported by evleaks that Microsoft was attempting to license the Nokia name in a co-branding scheme, which would have seen future devices branded as "Nokia by Microsoft".[82][83][84] After the acquisition of Nokia's mobile device business by Microsoft, several Lumia devices were unveiled by Microsoft Mobile in September 2014 that still carried the Nokia name, including the Lumia 830 and Lumia 735.[85] Nokia's mobile applications retained by Microsoft were rebranded as "Lumia".[86]
In September 2014, Microsoft announced Windows 10 operating system, a common platform for smartphones, tablets, laptops and Xbox. It was made available for their Lumia line of smartphones.[87] Due to the position of Microsoft Lumia devices being first-party hardware by Microsoft, Lumia handsets were the first to receive the Windows Insider preview.[88]
In October 2014, Microsoft announced that future Lumia devices would be branded with the "Microsoft" name and logo rather than "Nokia".[89][90] In November 2014, Microsoft announced its first self branded phone, Microsoft Lumia 535.[91] In November 2014 The Lumia Beta Apps division launched the Lumia Cinemagraph Beta which migrated content from Nokia's website to Microsoft OneDrive and subsequently implemented this feature in Lumia Cinemagraph.[92][93] Previously cinemagraphs used to be synchronized via the Nokia Memories site, the change was made in relation to migrating all content from Nokia's sites to Microsoft's services.[94]
In December 2014, Microsoft discontinued the Nokia Sync service, which used Nokia's account service to synchronize contacts and general phone information, in favour of other offerings such as Microsoft OneDrive, which uses Microsoft accounts as part of the transition from Nokia accounts to Microsoft accounts.[95]
2015–2017[edit]
To compete in developing markets, Microsoft launched various low- and mid-range devices—such as the Lumia 430 Dual SIM,[96][97] 532, 435, 640, 640 XL, and 540 Dual SIM—to boost Windows Phone sales and increase market share.[98][99] In Q2 2015, Lumia sold 10.5 million devices, compared to 8.2 million during the same quarter in the prior year.[100] As a consequence of the Microsoft Lumia 535 being as popular as its predecessor, the Nokia Lumia 520, in key markets such as India and Brazil,[101] Microsoft would not concentrate on releasing a high end Microsoft Lumia device until the launch of Windows 10.[102] In Q2 2015, feature phone sales declined year-over-year, with a total of 40 million being sold for a total revenue of $2.28 billion, and a gross margin of $330 million (14%), being significantly lower than previous years due to a global decline in the demand for feature phones in favour of smartphones.[103]
In Q3 2015, Lumia sales increased 6.5% over the previous year,[104] a total of 8.6 million Lumia handsets being sold (an 18% increase). But with declining sales of 25.7 million non-Lumia phones, Q3 2015 showed a decline overall.[105] Despite the increased Lumia sales, costs exceeded sales revenue by $4 million, and Microsoft posted a loss of 12 cents per phone sold.[106][107] In February 2015, Microsoft stated that most Lumia devices would be able to upgrade from Windows Phone 8.1 to Windows 10 Mobile. Joe Belfiore said that Microsoft was "working on" a limited version of 10 for low-end devices with 512 MB of RAM, citing the Nokia Lumia 520, which at the time represented 24.5% of all Windows Phone devices sold.[108][109][110]
On 28 April 2015, Microsoft opened the first Microsoft Priority Reseller Store, in the Indian city of Gurgaon, Haryana, as a move to rebrand all their Nokia stores worldwide. At the time Microsoft had 15,684 retail outlets and 324 Nokia Care centres. In addition to selling phones, the stores would also offer Surface and Xbox devices. Of India's 8,872 stores only 441 would become priority resellers, while the rest would be rebranded as Microsoft Mobile Reseller stores.[111][112] On 3 June 2015, Microsoft announced the new Nokia Series 30+ powered Nokia 105 and Nokia 105 Dual SIM devices, which would be primarily marketed to business and travelling users, first-time mobile telephone owners, and as "a back up device" for smartphone owners.[113][114]
In Q4 2015, Microsoft managed to sell only 19.4 million feature phones, compared to 30.3 million in the prior year.[115][116][117] In June 2015, Microsoft took over naming rights to Nokia Theatre L.A. Live, a 7,100 seat concert hall in Los Angeles, renaming it the Microsoft Theatre, supplying and installing new AV equipment, and renovating public spaces. L.A. Live's 40,000-square-foot outdoor plaza would be known as Microsoft Square; and Club Nokia, a 2,300 seat venue in the Plaza, would also be renamed.[118][119]
On 8 July 2015, Microsoft announced a planned restructuring of Microsoft Mobile, including a $7.6 billion write down on the acquisition of Nokia, planned layoffs of up to 7,800 jobs, and a plan to downsize its first-party smartphone business, releasing fewer devices per year and pulling out of underperforming markets. New Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella stated that the company planned to have a "more effective and focused phone portfolio", and aimed to "create a vibrant Windows ecosystem including our first-party device family."[120][121][122] In October 2015, Microsoft announced the first Lumia devices running on Windows 10 Mobile, the Lumia 950, 950 XL, and 550, the first two being high-end devices, the latter a budget phone.[123][124][125][126]
In February 2016, the Lumia 650, which runs on Windows 10 Mobile, was launched. It was primarily targeted towards mid-range consumers.[127]
In April 2016, it was revealed that 2.3 million Lumia devices were sold in the previous quarter, a major drop compared to 2015.[128] The rapidly falling sales, coupled with Windows Phone market share dropping below 1%,[129] led to Microsoft announcing on 23 May the "streamlining" of the business. It would lay off "up to 1,850 jobs worldwide",[130] with up to 1,350 of those in Finland. The company also wrote off US$900 million from the Nokia acquisition.[131] Microsoft planned to complete most of these job cuts by the end of 2016, with the rest being completed by July 2017. The company stated that it would continue to develop Windows 10 Mobile, support existing Lumia and future third-party devices (implicating that it would no longer produce new Lumia models), and "embrace other mobile platforms with our productivity services".[132][133]
The same month, Microsoft sold its Nokia feature phone business to HMD Global, a Finnish startup backed by former Nokia executives.[134] The Foxconn subsidiary FIH Mobile acquired a factory in Vietnam, as well as other distribution and manufacturing assets, from Microsoft Mobile as well. HMD and FIH announced that they would collaborate on developing and manufacturing new devices under the Nokia trademark (having reached a new 10-year license for the brand, and the Android-based Nokia 6 smartphone as its first device), with input from Nokia on design and incorporation of its technologies.[135][136][137]
In October 2017, Microsoft executive Joe Belfiore revealed that Microsoft would no longer develop new phone hardware, and that Windows 10 Mobile would only receive maintenance releases and patches from then on, citing its low market share and Microsoft's abandonment of its mobile business.[138][139]
Hardware products[edit]
Lumia[edit]
Lumia was a line of touchscreen smartphones and, previously, tablet computers, introduced in November 2011. All Lumia mobile telephones run on the Windows Phone operating system. The only Lumia tablet Lumia 2520, running Windows RT, was introduced in November 2013 and has been discontinued.[140] The Lumia is Microsoft's flagship phone portfolio.[141][142]
In October 2014, Microsoft officially announced that it would phase out the Nokia brand in its promotion and production of Lumia smartphones, and that future Lumia models would be branded solely with the name and logo of Microsoft.[143][144][145][146] In November 2014, Microsoft announced its first self-branded phone, Microsoft Lumia 535.[91][147][148] Rebranding the Lumia line from "Nokia" to "Microsoft" did not affect sales, though some critics believed that the change might influence consumers' decisions due to Nokia being an established phone brand, compared to Microsoft.[149][150]
In October 2015, Microsoft announced the first Lumia devices running on Windows 10 Mobile platform, the Lumia 950, Lumia 950 XL, and Lumia 550.[151][152][153] In addition. Microsoft stated that most Lumia devices would be able to upgrade from Windows Phone 8/8.1 to Windows 10, from December 2015.
In October 2017, Microsoft executive Joe Belfiore revealed that Microsoft would no longer develop new phone hardware, and that Windows 10 Mobile would only receive maintenance releases and patches from then on, citing its low market share and Microsoft's abandonment of its mobile business.[138][139]
For its Microsoft Lumia series Microsoft Mobile created such exclusive content as the Lumia imaging apps (that make use of the PureView technology on higher end Lumia devices) and new software was often tested through the Lumia Beta Apps.
Nokia X[edit]
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In mid-September 2013, a media report revealed that Nokia tested the Android operating system on both its Lumia and Asha hardware.[154] On 11 December 2013, a report showed that development of the Asha-like device, codenamed "Normandy", was continuing, despite the finalisation of Nokia's acquisition by Microsoft.[155] In February 2014, in Barcelona, Spain, the Nokia X family was unveiled at Mobile World Congress. These devices, which were aimed towards emerging markets, run a modified version of Android known as Nokia X Software Platform, which was aligned towards Microsoft services and did not use Google Play Store. In a company memo released in July 2014, it was announced that, as part of cutbacks, Microsoft would end the Asha, Series 40, and X range entirely, in favor of solely producing and encouraging the use of Windows Phone products.[66]
Asha[edit]
The Asha series consisted of feature phones and low-end smartphones targeted mainly at emerging markets. The series has a mixture of full-touchscreen, "touch and type", QWERTY, and traditional T9-keypad devices. Originally, the Asha devices ran on Nokia's veteran operating system Series 40. Nokia later created the Asha platform as a result of their acquisition of Smarterphone. In May 2013, the Asha 501 became the first device running under the new OS, and all new Ashas since have been running on the new Asha platform.[156]During the July 2014 job cuts and restructuring at Microsoft, these device lines were moved to "maintenance mode", and would be discontinued, along with Nokia X and Series 40,[157] in favour of solely producing Windows Phone products.[66]
Series 40[edit]
Series 40, or S40, was a software platform and user interface (UI) on Nokia's broad range of mid-tier feature phones, as well as on some of the Vertu line of luxury phones. It was one of the world's most widely used mobile phone platforms.[158] On 25 January 2012, Nokia announced that the company had sold over 1.5 billion Series 40 devices.[159] Although S40 has more features than the Series 30 platform, it was not used for smartphones, where Nokia primarily used Windows Phone and, until 2012, Symbian. However, in 2012 and 2013, several Series 40 phones from the Asha line, such as the 308, 309, and 311, were advertised as "smartphones" although they did not support smartphone features like multitasking or a full-fledged HTML browser.[160] In July 2014, it was announced that Microsoft would discontinue Series 40.[66]
Series 30+[edit]
Series 30+ is a software platform and user interface that was used by Microsoft Mobile for its entry-level mobile devices.[161] The first Series 30+ device was the Nokia 130,[162][163] which had basic features such as a flashlight, FM radio, USB charging, video playback from microSD cards, and Bluetooth and USB connectivity, but no internet access. The Nokia 215, released in 2014, allowed users to browse the internet with Bing and MSN Weather and came pre-installed with Opera Mini.[164] In June 2015, Microsoft further expanded the line of Nokia-branded feature phones with the Nokia 105 aimed specifically at developing nations, and named after an earlier model with the same target audience,[165] but marketed also towards present smartphone owners, being "perfect for those looking to own their first mobile phone or for those needing a reliable back-up phone for travel and fun."[166] In the third quarter of 2015, the Nokia 222 was released. It featured a larger, 2.4-inch screen.[167] In December 2015, the Nokia 230 was the last Nokia phone from Microsoft. It had an aluminium body, a 2 megapixel front-facing camera, and a dedicated selfie camera key.[168]Series 30+ still lives today as part of HMD Global.
Series 30[edit]
Series 30, or S30, was a software platform and user interface created by Nokia for its entry-level mobile devices. S30 phones are not capable of running Java apps.[169] By mid 2014, Microsoft discontinued S30 for its Nokia-branded mobile devices.[170]
Mobile accessories[edit]
Besides phones Microsoft Mobile also produces mobile-phone accessories such as the Bluetooth enabled Treasure Tags. In newer devices Microsoft has bundled the Swedish company Coloud's headsets as opposed to first-party hardware.[171] In late 2014, Microsoft launched a portable battery charger called Microsoft Portable Power,[172] succeeded by Microsoft Portable Dual Chargers.[173][174]
Treasure Tag[edit]
Treasure Tag, originally Nokia Treasure Tag, is an NFC and Bluetooth enabled keychain companion to Lumia devices. When Treasure Tags are attached to small valuables, such as keys or wallets, the Lumia device can show a map to help locate them.[175][176]
Treasure Tag Mini, originally Nokia Treasure Tag Mini, was launched by Microsoft in 2014 as a successor to the original Treasure Tag. It added support for iOS and Android (including Nokia X devices). Compared to the original, the Treasure Tag Mini comes in fewer colours, has shorter battery life, lacks NFC capabilities, and has no notification tones.
History
The name Andrew and the noun Android share the Greek root andros, which means man. Andy Rubin picked android.com as his personal website, and his colleagues used Android as his nickname at work. That eventually became the name of the company he founded, and the name of the operating system they developed.[11]
Android Inc. was founded in Palo Alto, California, in October 2003 by Andy Rubin, Rich Miner, Nick Sears, and Chris White.[13][14] Rubin described the Android project as "tremendous potential in developing smarter mobile devices that are more aware of its owner's location and preferences".[14] The early intentions of the company were to develop an advanced operating system for digital cameras, and this was the basis of its pitch to investors in April 2004.[15] The company then decided that the market for cameras was not large enough for its goals, and by five months later it had diverted its efforts and was pitching Android as a handset operating system that would rival Symbian and Microsoft Windows Mobile.[15][16]
Rubin had difficulty attracting investors early on, and Android was facing eviction from its office space. Steve Perlman, a close friend of Rubin, brought him $10,000 in cash in an envelope, and shortly thereafter wired an undisclosed amount as seed funding. Perlman refused a stake in the company, and has stated "I did it because I believed in the thing, and I wanted to help Andy."[17][18]
In July 2005,[14] Google acquired Android Inc. for at least $50 million.[19] Its key employees, including Rubin, Miner and White, joined Google as part of the acquisition.[14] Not much was known about the secretive Android at the time, with the company having provided few details other than that it was making software for mobile phones.[14] At Google, the team led by Rubin developed a mobile device platform powered by the Linux kernel. Google marketed the platform to handset makers and carriers on the promise of providing a flexible, upgradeable system.[20] Google had "lined up a series of hardware components and software partners and signaled to carriers that it was open to various degrees of cooperation".[attribution needed][21]
Speculation about Google's intention to enter the mobile communications market continued to build through December 2006.[22] An early prototype had a close resemblance to a BlackBerry phone, with no touchscreen and a physical QWERTY keyboard, but the arrival of 2007's Apple iPhone meant that Android "had to go back to the drawing board".[23][24]Google later changed its Android specification documents to state that "Touchscreens will be supported", although "the Product was designed with the presence of discrete physical buttons as an assumption, therefore a touchscreen cannot completely replace physical buttons".[25] By 2008, both Nokia and BlackBerry announced touch-based smartphones to rival the iPhone 3G, and Android's focus eventually switched to just touchscreens. The first commercially available smartphone running Android was the HTC Dream, also known as T-Mobile G1, announced on September 23, 2008.[26][27]
On November 5, 2007, the Open Handset Alliance, a consortium of technology companies including Google, device manufacturers such as HTC, Motorola and Samsung, wireless carriers such as Sprint and T-Mobile, and chipset makers such as Qualcomm and Texas Instruments, unveiled itself, with a goal to develop "the first truly open and comprehensive platform for mobile devices".[28][29][30] Within a year, the Open Handset Alliance faced two other open source competitors, the Symbian Foundation and the LiMo Foundation, the latter also developing a Linux-based mobile operating system like Google. In September 2007, InformationWeek covered an Evalueserve study reporting that Google had filed several patent applications in the area of mobile telephony.[31][32]
Since 2008, Android has seen numerous updates which have incrementally improved the operating system, adding new features and fixing bugs in previous releases. Each major release is named in alphabetical order after a dessert or sugary treat, with the first few Android versions being called "Cupcake", "Donut", "Eclair", and "Froyo", in that order. During its announcement of Android KitKat in 2013, Google explained that "Since these devices make our lives so sweet, each Android version is named after a dessert", although a Google spokesperson told CNN in an interview that "It's kind of like an internal team thing, and we prefer to be a little bit — how should I say — a bit inscrutable in the matter, I'll say".[33]
In 2010, Google launched its Nexus series of devices, a lineup in which Google partnered with different device manufacturers to produce new devices and introduce new Android versions. The series was described as having "played a pivotal role in Android's history by introducing new software iterations and hardware standards across the board", and became known for its "bloat-free" software with "timely ... updates".[34] At its developer conference in May 2013, Google announced a special version of the Samsung Galaxy S4, where, instead of using Samsung's own Android customization, the phone ran "stock Android" and was promised to receive new system updates fast.[35] The device would become the start of the Google Play edition program, and was followed by other devices, including the HTC One Google Play edition,[36] and Moto G Google Play edition.[37] In 2015, Ars Technica wrote that "Earlier this week, the last of the Google Play edition Android phones in Google's online storefront were listed as "no longer available for sale" and that "Now they're all gone, and it looks a whole lot like the program has wrapped up".[38][39]
From 2008 to 2013, Hugo Barra served as product spokesperson, representing Android at press conferences and Google I/O, Google's annual developer-focused conference. He left Google in August 2013 to join Chinese phone maker Xiaomi.[40][41] Less than six months earlier, Google's then-CEO Larry Page announced in a blog post that Andy Rubin had moved from the Android division to take on new projects at Google, and that Sundar Pichai would become the new Android lead.[42][43] Pichai himself would eventually switch positions, becoming the new CEO of Google in August 2015 following the company's restructure into the Alphabet conglomerate,[44][45] making Hiroshi Lockheimer the new head of Android.[46][47]
In June 2014, Google announced Android One, a set of "hardware reference models" that would "allow [device makers] to easily create high-quality phones at low costs", designed for consumers in developing countries.[48][49][50] In September, Google announced the first set of Android One phones for release in India.[51][52] However, Recode reported in June 2015 that the project was "a disappointment", citing "reluctant consumers and manufacturing partners" and "misfires from the search company that has never quite cracked hardware".[53]Plans to relaunch Android One surfaced in August 2015,[54] with Africa announced as the next location for the program a week later.[55][56] A report from The Information in January 2017 stated that Google is expanding its low-cost Android One program into the United States, although The Verge notes that the company will presumably not produce the actual devices itself.[57][58]
Google introduced the Pixel and Pixel XL smartphones in October 2016, marketed as being the first phones made by Google,[59][60] and exclusively featured certain software features, such as the Google Assistant, before wider rollout.[61][62] The Pixel phones replaced the Nexus series,[63] with a new generation of Pixel phones launched in October 2017.[64]
Features
Interface
Android's default user interface is mainly based on direct manipulation, using touch inputs that loosely correspond to real-world actions, like swiping, tapping, pinching, and reverse pinching to manipulate on-screen objects, along with a virtual keyboard.[65] Game controllers and full-size physical keyboards are supported via Bluetooth or USB.[66][67]The response to user input is designed to be immediate and provides a fluid touch interface, often using the vibration capabilities of the device to provide haptic feedback to the user. Internal hardware, such as accelerometers, gyroscopes and proximity sensors are used by some applications to respond to additional user actions, for example adjusting the screen from portrait to landscape depending on how the device is oriented,[68] or allowing the user to steer a vehicle in a racing game by rotating the device, simulating control of a steering wheel.[69]
Android devices boot to the homescreen, the primary navigation and information "hub" on Android devices, analogous to the desktop found on personal computers. Android homescreens are typically made up of app icons and widgets; app icons launch the associated app, whereas widgets display live, auto-updating content, such as a weather forecast, the user's email inbox, or a news ticker directly on the homescreen.[70] A homescreen may be made up of several pages, between which the user can swipe back and forth.[71] Third-party apps available on Google Play and other app stores can extensively re-theme the homescreen,[72] and even mimic the look of other operating systems, such as Windows Phone.[73] Most manufacturers customize the look and features of their Android devices to differentiate themselves from their competitors.[74]
Along the top of the screen is a status bar, showing information about the device and its connectivity. This status bar can be "pulled" down to reveal a notification screen where apps display important information or updates.[71] Notifications are "short, timely, and relevant information about your app when it's not in use", and when tapped, users are directed to a screen inside the app relating to the notification.[75] Beginning with Android 4.1 "Jelly Bean", "expandable notifications" allow the user to tap an icon on the notification in order for it to expand and display more information and possible app actions right from the notification.[76]
An All Apps screen lists all installed applications, with the ability for users to drag an app from the list onto the home screen. A Recents screen lets users switch between recently used apps.[71]
Applications
Applications ("apps"), which extend the functionality of devices, are written using the Android software development kit (SDK)[77] and, often, the Java programming language.[78]Java may be combined with C/C++,[79] together with a choice of non-default runtimes that allow better C++ support.[80] The Go programming language is also supported, although with a limited set of application programming interfaces (API).[81] In May 2017, Google announced support for Android app development in the Kotlin programming language.[82][83]
The SDK includes a comprehensive set of development tools,[84] including a debugger, software libraries, a handset emulator based on QEMU, documentation, sample code, and tutorials. Initially, Google's supported integrated development environment (IDE) was Eclipse using the Android Development Tools (ADT) plugin; in December 2014, Google released Android Studio, based on IntelliJ IDEA, as its primary IDE for Android application development. Other development tools are available, including a native development kit (NDK) for applications or extensions in C or C++, Google App Inventor, a visual environment for novice programmers, and various cross platform mobile web applications frameworks. In January 2014, Google unveiled an framework based on Apache Cordova for porting Chrome HTML 5 web applications to Android, wrapped in a native application shell.[85]
Android has a growing selection of third-party applications, which can be acquired by users by downloading and installing the application's APK (Android application package) file, or by downloading them using an application store program that allows users to install, update, and remove applications from their devices. Google Play Store is the primary application store installed on Android devices that comply with Google's compatibility requirements and license the Google Mobile Services software.[86][87] Google Play Store allows users to browse, download and update applications published by Google and third-party developers; as of July 2013, there are more than one million applications available for Android in Play Store.[88] As of July 2013, 50 billion applications have been installed.[89][90] Some carriers offer direct carrier billing for Google Play application purchases, where the cost of the application is added to the user's monthly bill.[91] As of May 2017, there are over one billion active users a month for Gmail, Android, Chrome, Google Play and Maps.
Due to the open nature of Android, a number of third-party application marketplaces also exist for Android, either to provide a substitute for devices that are not allowed to ship with Google Play Store, provide applications that cannot be offered on Google Play Store due to policy violations, or for other reasons. Examples of these third-party stores have included the Amazon Appstore, GetJar, and SlideMe. F-Droid, another alternative marketplace, seeks to only provide applications that are distributed under free and open sourcelicenses.[86][92][93][94]
Memory management
Since Android devices are usually battery-powered, Android is designed to manage processes to keep power consumption at a minimum. When an application is not in use the system suspends its operation so that, while available for immediate use rather than closed, it does not use battery power or CPU resources.[95][96] Android manages the applications stored in memory automatically: when memory is low, the system will begin invisibly and automatically closing inactive processes, starting with those that have been inactive for the longest amount of time.[97][98] Lifehacker reported in 2011 that third-party task killer applications were doing more harm than good.[99]
Hardware
The main hardware platform for Android is ARM (the ARMv7 and ARMv8-A architectures), with x86 and x86-64 architectures also officially supported in later versions of Android.[100][101][102][103] The unofficial Android-x86 project provided support for x86 architectures ahead of the official support.[104][105] The ARMv5TE and MIPS32/64 architectures were also historically supported but removed in later Android releases.[106] Since 2012, Android devices with Intel processors began to appear, including phones[107]and tablets. While gaining support for 64-bit platforms, Android was first made to run on 64-bit x86 and then on ARM64. Since Android 5.0 "Lollipop", 64-bit variants of all platforms are supported in addition to the 32-bit variants.[100]
Requirements for the minimum amount of RAM for devices running Android 7.1 range from in practice 2 GB for best hardware, down to 1 GB for the most common screen, to absolute minimum 512 MB for the lowest spec 32-bit smartphone. The recommendation for Android 4.4 is to have at least 512 MB of RAM,[108] while for "low RAM" devices 340 MB is the required minimum amount that does not include memory dedicated to various hardware components such as the baseband processor.[109] Android 4.4 requires a 32-bit ARMv7, MIPS or x86 architecture processor (latter two through unofficial ports),[104][105] together with an OpenGL ES 2.0 compatible graphics processing unit (GPU).[110]Android supports OpenGL ES 1.1, 2.0, 3.0, 3.1 and as of latest major version, 3.2 and since Android 7.0 Vulkan (and version 1.1 available for some devices[111]). Some applications may explicitly require a certain version of the OpenGL ES, and suitable GPU hardware is required to run such applications.[110]
Android devices incorporate many optional hardware components, including still or video cameras, GPS, orientation sensors, dedicated gaming controls, accelerometers, gyroscopes, barometers, magnetometers, proximity sensors, pressure sensors, thermometers, and touchscreens. Some hardware components are not required, but became standard in certain classes of devices, such as smartphones, and additional requirements apply if they are present. Some other hardware was initially required, but those requirements have been relaxed or eliminated altogether. For example, as Android was developed initially as a phone OS, hardware such as microphones were required, while over time the phone function became optional.[90] Android used to require an autofocus camera, which was relaxed to a fixed-focus camera[90] if present at all, since the camera was dropped as a requirement entirely when Android started to be used on set-top boxes.
In addition to running on smartphones and tablets, several vendors run Android natively on regular PC hardware with a keyboard and mouse.[112][113][114][115] In addition to their availability on commercially available hardware, similar PC hardware-friendly versions of Android are freely available from the Android-x86 project, including customized Android 4.4.[116] Using the Android emulator that is part of the Android SDK, or third-party emulators, Android can also run non-natively on x86 architectures.[117][118] Chinese companies are building a PC and mobile operating system, based on Android, to "compete directly with Microsoft Windows and Google Android".[119] The Chinese Academy of Engineering noted that "more than a dozen" companies were customising Android following a Chinese ban on the use of Windows 8 on government PCs.[120][121][122]
Development
Android is developed by Google until the latest changes and updates are ready to be released, at which point the source code is made available to the Android Open Source Project (AOSP),[123] an open source initiative led by Google.[124] The AOSP code can be found without modification on select devices, mainly the Nexus and Pixel series of devices.[125] The source code is, in turn, customized and adapted by original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) to run on their hardware.[126][127] Also, Android's source code does not contain the often proprietary device drivers that are needed for certain hardware components.[128] As a result, most Android devices, including Google's own, ultimately ship with a combination of free and open source and proprietary software, with the software required for accessing Google services falling into the latter category.
Update schedule
Google announces major incremental upgrades to Android on a yearly basis.[129] The updates can be installed on devices over-the-air.[130] The latest major release is 9 "Pie".
Compared to its primary rival mobile operating system, Apple's iOS, Android updates typically reach various devices with significant delays. Except for devices within the Google Nexus and Pixel brands, updates often arrive months after the release of the new version, or not at all.[131] This was partly due to the extensive variation in hardware in Android devices,[132] to which each upgrade must be specifically tailored, a time- and resource-consuming process.[133] Manufacturers often prioritize their newest devices and leave old ones behind.[134] Additional delays can be introduced by wireless carriers that, after receiving updates from manufacturers, further customize and brand Android to their needs and conduct extensive testing on their networks before sending the upgrade out to users.[134][135] There are also situations in which upgrades are not possible due to one manufacturing partner not providing necessary updates to drivers.[136]
The extensive variation of hardware in Android devices causes significant delays for software upgrades, with new versions of the operating system and security patches typically taking months before reaching consumers, or sometimes not at all. The lack of after-sale support from manufacturers and carriers has been widely criticized by consumer groups and the technology media.[137][138][139] Some commentators have noted that the industry has a financial incentive not to upgrade their devices, as the lack of updates for existing devices fuels the purchase of newer ones,[140] an attitude described as "insulting".[139] The Guardian complained that the method of distribution for updates is complicated only because manufacturers and carriers have designed it that way.[139] In 2011, Google partnered with a number of industry players to announce an "Android Update Alliance", pledging to deliver timely updates for every device for 18 months after its release; however, there has not been another official word about that alliance since its announcement.[134][141]
In 2012, Google began decoupling certain aspects of the operating system (particularly its core applications) so they could be updated through the Google Play store independently of the OS. One of those components, Google Play Services, is a closed-source system-level process providing APIs for Google services, installed automatically on nearly all devices running Android 2.2 "Froyo" and higher. With these changes, Google can add new system functionality through Play Services and update apps without having to distribute an upgrade to the operating system itself.[142] As a result, Android 4.2 and 4.3 "Jelly Bean" contained relatively fewer user-facing changes, focusing more on minor changes and platform improvements.[143]
In May 2016, Bloomberg reported that Google was making efforts to keep Android more up-to-date, including accelerated rates of security updates, rolling out technological workarounds, reducing requirements for phone testing, and ranking phone makers in an attempt to "shame" them into better behavior. As stated by Bloomberg: "As smartphones get more capable, complex and hackable, having the latest software work closely with the hardware is increasingly important". Hiroshi Lockheimer, the Android lead, admitted that "It's not an ideal situation", further commenting that the lack of updates is "the weakest link on security on Android". Wireless carriers were described in the report as the "most challenging discussions", due to carriers' slow approval time due to testing on their networks, despite some carriers, including Verizon and Sprint, having already shortened their respective approval times. HTC's then-executive Jason Mackenzie called monthly security updates "unrealistic" in 2015, and Google was trying to persuade carriers to exclude security patches from the full testing procedures. In a further effort for persuasion, Google shared a list of top phone makers measured by updated devices with its Android partners, and is considering making the list public. Mike Chan, co-founder of phone maker Nextbit and former Android developer, said that "The best way to solve this problem is a massive re-architecture of the operating system", "or Google could invest in training manufacturers and carriers "to be good Android citizens"".[144][145][146]
In May 2017, with the announcement of Android 8.0, Google introduced Project Treble, a major re-architect of the Android OS framework designed to make it easier, faster, and less costly for manufacturers to update devices to newer versions of Android. Project Treble separates the vendor implementation (device-specific, lower-level software written by silicon manufacturers) from the Android OS framework via a new "vendor interface". In Android 7.0 and earlier, no formal vendor interface exists, so device makers must update large portions of the Android code to move a device to a newer version of the operating system. With Treble, the new stable vendor interface provides access to the hardware-specific parts of Android, enabling device makers to deliver new Android releases simply by updating the Android OS framework, "without any additional work required from the silicon manufacturers."[147]
In September 2017, Google's Project Treble team revealed that, as part of their efforts to improve the security lifecycle of Android devices, Google had managed to get the Linux Foundation to agree to extend the support lifecycle of the Linux Long-Term Support (LTS) kernel branch from the 2 years that it has historically lasted to 6 years for future versions of the LTS kernel, starting with Linux kernel 4.4.[148]
Linux kernel
Android's kernel is based on the Linux kernel's long-term support (LTS) branches. As of 2018, Android targets versions 4.4, 4.9 or 4.14 of the Linux kernel.[149] The actual kernel depends on the individual device.[150]
Android's variant of the Linux kernel has further architectural changes that are implemented by Google outside the typical Linux kernel development cycle, such as the inclusion of components like device trees, ashmem, ION, and different out of memory (OOM) handling.[151][152] Certain features that Google contributed back to the Linux kernel, notably a power management feature called "wakelocks",[153] were initially rejected by mainline kernel developers partly because they felt that Google did not show any intent to maintain its own code.[154][155] Google announced in April 2010 that they would hire two employees to work with the Linux kernel community,[156] but Greg Kroah-Hartman, the current Linux kernel maintainer for the stable branch, said in December 2010 that he was concerned that Google was no longer trying to get their code changes included in mainstream Linux.[155] Google engineer Patrick Brady once stated in the company's developer conference that "Android is not Linux",[157] with Computerworld adding that "Let me make it simple for you, without Linux, there is no Android".[158] Ars Technica wrote that "Although Android is built on top of the Linux kernel, the platform has very little in common with the conventional desktop Linux stack".[157]
In August 2011, Linus Torvalds said that "eventually Android and Linux would come back to a common kernel, but it will probably not be for four to five years".[159] In December 2011, Greg Kroah-Hartman announced the start of Android Mainlining Project, which aims to put some Android drivers, patches and features back into the Linux kernel, starting in Linux 3.3.[160] Linux included the autosleep and wakelocks capabilities in the 3.5 kernel, after many previous attempts at merger. The interfaces are the same but the upstream Linux implementation allows for two different suspend modes: to memory (the traditional suspend that Android uses), and to disk (hibernate, as it is known on the desktop).[161]Google maintains a public code repository that contains their experimental work to re-base Android off the latest stable Linux versions.[162][163]
The flash storage on Android devices is split into several partitions, such as
/system for the operating system itself, and /data for user data and application installations.[164]In contrast to desktop Linux distributions, Android device owners are not given root access to the operating system and sensitive partitions such as /system are read-only. However, root access can be obtained by exploiting security flaws in Android, which is used frequently by the open-source community to enhance the capabilities of their devices,[165] but also by malicious parties to install viruses and malware.[166]
Android is a Linux distribution according to the Linux Foundation,[167] Google's open-source chief Chris DiBona,[168] and several journalists.[169][170] Others, such as Google engineer Patrick Brady, say that Android is not Linux in the traditional Unix-like Linux distribution sense; Android does not include the GNU C Library (it uses Bionic as an alternative C library) and some of other components typically found in Linux distributions.[171]
With the release of Android Oreo in 2017, Google began to require that devices shipped with new SoCs had Linux kernel version 4.4 or newer, for security reasons. Existing devices upgraded to Oreo, and new products launched with older SoCs, were exempt from this rule.[172][173]
Software stack
On top of the Linux kernel, there are the middleware, libraries and APIs written in C, and application software running on an application framework which includes Java-compatible libraries. Development of the Linux kernel continues independently of Android's other source code projects.
Android uses Android Runtime (ART) as its runtime environment (introduced in version 4.4), which uses ahead-of-time (AOT) compilation to entirely compile the application bytecode into machine code upon the installation of an application. In Android 4.4, ART was an experimental feature and not enabled by default; it became the only runtime option in the next major version of Android, 5.0.[174] In versions no longer supported, until version 5.0 when ART took over, Android previously used Dalvik as a process virtual machine with trace-based just-in-time (JIT) compilation to run Dalvik "dex-code" (Dalvik Executable), which is usually translated from the Java bytecode. Following the trace-based JIT principle, in addition to interpreting the majority of application code, Dalvik performs the compilation and native execution of select frequently executed code segments ("traces") each time an application is launched.[175][176][177] For its Java library, the Android platform uses a subset of the now discontinued Apache Harmony project.[178] In December 2015, Google announced that the next version of Android would switch to a Java implementation based on the OpenJDK project.[179]
Android's standard C library, Bionic, was developed by Google specifically for Android, as a derivation of the BSD's standard C library code. Bionic itself has been designed with several major features specific to the Linux kernel. The main benefits of using Bionic instead of the GNU C Library (glibc) or uClibc are its smaller runtime footprint, and optimization for low-frequency CPUs. At the same time, Bionic is licensed under the terms of the BSD licence, which Google finds more suitable for the Android's overall licensing model.[177]
Aiming for a different licensing model, toward the end of 2012, Google switched the Bluetooth stack in Android from the GPL-licensed BlueZ to the Apache-licensed BlueDroid.[180]
Android does not have a native X Window System by default, nor does it support the full set of standard GNU libraries. This made it difficult to port existing Linux applications or libraries to Android,[171] until version r5 of the Android Native Development Kit brought support for applications written completely in C or C++.[181] Libraries written in C may also be used in applications by injection of a small shim and usage of the JNI.[182]
In current versions of Android, "Toybox", a collection of command-line utilities (mostly for use by apps, as Android doesn't provide a command-line interface by default), is used (since the release of Marshmallow) replacing a similar "Toolbox" collection found in previous Android versions.[183]
Android has another operating system, Trusty OS, within it, as a part of "Trusty" "software components supporting a Trusted Execution Environment (TEE) on mobile devices." "Trusty and the Trusty API are subject to change. [..] Applications for the Trusty OS can be written in C/C++ (C++ support is limited), and they have access to a small C library. [..] All Trusty applications are single-threaded; multithreading in Trusty userspace currently is unsupported. [..] Third-party application development is not supported in" the current version, and software running on the OS and processor for it, run the "DRM framework for protected content. [..] There are many other uses for a TEE such as mobile payments, secure banking, full-disk encryption, multi-factor authentication, device reset protection, replay-protected persistent storage, wireless display ("cast") of protected content, secure PIN and fingerprint processing, and even malware detection."[184]
Open-source community
Android's source code is released by Google under an open source license, and its open nature has encouraged a large community of developers and enthusiasts to use the open-source code as a foundation for community-driven projects, which deliver updates to older devices, add new features for advanced users or bring Android to devices originally shipped with other operating systems.[185] These community-developed releases often bring new features and updates to devices faster than through the official manufacturer/carrier channels, with a comparable level of quality;[186] provide continued support for older devices that no longer receive official updates; or bring Android to devices that were officially released running other operating systems, such as the HP TouchPad. Community releases often come pre-rooted and contain modifications not provided by the original vendor, such as the ability to overclock or over/undervolt the device's processor.[187] CyanogenMod was the most widely used community firmware,[188]now discontinued and succeeded by LineageOS.[189]
Historically, device manufacturers and mobile carriers have typically been unsupportive of third-party firmware development. Manufacturers express concern about improper functioning of devices running unofficial software and the support costs resulting from this.[190] Moreover, modified firmware such as CyanogenMod sometimes offer features, such as tethering, for which carriers would otherwise charge a premium. As a result, technical obstacles including locked bootloaders and restricted access to root permissions are common in many devices. However, as community-developed software has grown more popular, and following a statement by the Librarian of Congress in the United States that permits the "jailbreaking" of mobile devices,[191] manufacturers and carriers have softened their position regarding third party development, with some, including HTC,[190]Motorola,[192] Samsung[193][194] and Sony,[195] providing support and encouraging development. As a result of this, over time the need to circumvent hardware restrictions to install unofficial firmware has lessened as an increasing number of devices are shipped with unlocked or unlockable bootloaders, similar to Nexus series of phones, although usually requiring that users waive their devices' warranties to do so.[190] However, despite manufacturer acceptance, some carriers in the US still require that phones are locked down, frustrating developers and customers.[196]
Security and privacy
Scope of surveillance by public institutions
As part of the broader 2013 mass surveillance disclosures it was revealed in September 2013 that the American and British intelligence agencies, the National Security Agency (NSA) and Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ), respectively, have access to the user data on iPhone, BlackBerry, and Android devices. They are reportedly able to read almost all smartphone information, including SMS, location, emails, and notes.[197] In January 2014, further reports revealed the intelligence agencies' capabilities to intercept the personal information transmitted across the Internet by social networks and other popular applications such as Angry Birds, which collect personal information of their users for advertising and other commercial reasons. GCHQ has, according to The Guardian, a wiki-style guide of different apps and advertising networks, and the different data that can be siphoned from each.[198] Later that week, the Finnish Angry Birds developer Rovio announced that it was reconsidering its relationships with its advertising platforms in the light of these revelations, and called upon the wider industry to do the same.[199]
The documents revealed a further effort by the intelligence agencies to intercept Google Maps searches and queries submitted from Android and other smartphones to collect location information in bulk.[198] The NSA and GCHQ insist their activities are in compliance with all relevant domestic and international laws, although the Guardian stated "the latest disclosures could also add to mounting public concern about how the technology sector collects and uses information, especially for those outside the US, who enjoy fewer privacy protections than Americans."[198]
Leaked documents published by WikiLeaks, codenamed Vault 7 and dated from 2013–2016, detail the capabilities of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) to perform electronic surveillance and cyber warfare, including the ability to compromise the operating systems of most smartphones (including Android).[200][201]
Common security threats
Research from security company Trend Micro lists premium service abuse as the most common type of Android malware, where text messages are sent from infected phones to premium-rate telephone numbers without the consent or even knowledge of the user. Other malware displays unwanted and intrusive advertisements on the device, or sends personal information to unauthorised third parties.[202] Security threats on Android are reportedly growing exponentially; however, Google engineers have argued that the malware and virus threat on Android is being exaggerated by security companies for commercial reasons,[203][204] and have accused the security industry of playing on fears to sell virus protection software to users.[203] Google maintains that dangerous malware is actually extremely rare,[204] and a survey conducted by F-Secure showed that only 0.5% of Android malware reported had come from the Google Play store.[205]
In August 2015, Google announced that devices in the Google Nexus series would begin to receive monthly security patches. Google also wrote that "Nexus devices will continue to receive major updates for at least two years and security patches for the longer of three years from initial availability or 18 months from last sale of the device via the Google Store."[206][207][208] The following October, researchers at the University of Cambridge concluded that 87.7% of Android phones in use had known but unpatched security vulnerabilities due to lack of updates and support.[209][210][211] Ron Amadeo of Ars Technica wrote also in August 2015 that "Android was originally designed, above all else, to be widely adopted. Google was starting from scratch with zero percent market share, so it was happy to give up control and give everyone a seat at the table in exchange for adoption. [...] Now, though, Android has around 75–80 percent of the worldwide smartphone market—making it not just the world's most popular mobile operating system but arguably the most popular operating system, period. As such, security has become a big issue. Android still uses a software update chain-of-command designed back when the Android ecosystem had zero devices to update, and it just doesn't work".[212] Following news of Google's monthly schedule, some manufacturers, including Samsung and LG, promised to issue monthly security updates,[213] but, as noted by Jerry Hildenbrand in Android Central in February 2016, "instead we got a few updates on specific versions of a small handful of models. And a bunch of broken promises".[214]
In a March 2017 post on Google's Security Blog, Android security leads Adrian Ludwig and Mel Miller wrote that "More than 735 million devices from 200+ manufacturers received a platform security update in 2016" and that "Our carrier and hardware partners helped expand deployment of these updates, releasing updates for over half of the top 50 devices worldwide in the last quarter of 2016". They also wrote that "About half of devices in use at the end of 2016 had not received a platform security update in the previous year", stating that their work would continue to focus on streamlining the security updates program for easier deployment by manufacturers.[215] Furthermore, in a comment to TechCrunch, Ludwig stated that the wait time for security updates had been reduced from "six to nine weeks down to just a few days", with 78% of flagship devices in North America being up-to-date on security at the end of 2016.[216]
Patches to bugs found in the core operating system often do not reach users of older and lower-priced devices.[217][218] However, the open-source nature of Android allows security contractors to take existing devices and adapt them for highly secure uses. For example, Samsung has worked with General Dynamics through their Open Kernel Labs acquisition to rebuild Jelly Bean on top of their hardened microvisor for the "Knox" project.[219][220]
Android smartphones have the ability to report the location of Wi-Fi access points, encountered as phone users move around, to build databases containing the physical locations of hundreds of millions of such access points. These databases form electronic maps to locate smartphones, allowing them to run apps like Foursquare, Google Latitude, Facebook Places, and to deliver location-based ads.[221] Third party monitoring software such as TaintDroid,[222] an academic research-funded project, can, in some cases, detect when personal information is being sent from applications to remote servers.[223]
Technical security features
Android applications run in a sandbox, an isolated area of the system that does not have access to the rest of the system's resources, unless access permissions are explicitly granted by the user when the application is installed, however this may not be possible for pre-installed apps. It is not possible, for example, to turn off the microphone access of the pre-installed camera app without disabling the camera completely. This is valid also in Android versions 7 and 8.[224]
Since February 2012, Google has used its Google Bouncer malware scanner to watch over and scan apps available in the Google Play store.[225][226] A "Verify Apps" feature was introduced in November 2012, as part of the Android 4.2 "Jelly Bean" operating system version, to scan all apps, both from Google Play and from third-party sources, for malicious behavior.[227] Originally only doing so during installation, Verify Apps received an update in 2014 to "constantly" scan apps, and in 2017 the feature was made visible to users through a menu in Settings.[228][229]
Before installing an application, the Google Play store displays a list of the requirements an app needs to function. After reviewing these permissions, the user can choose to accept or refuse them, installing the application only if they accept.[230] In Android 6.0 "Marshmallow", the permissions system was changed; apps are no longer automatically granted all of their specified permissions at installation time. An opt-in system is used instead, in which users are prompted to grant or deny individual permissions to an app when they are needed for the first time. Applications remember the grants, which can be revoked by the user at any time. Pre-installed apps, however, are not always part of this approach. In some cases it may not be possible to deny certain permissions to pre-installed apps, nor be possible to disable them. The Google Play Services app cannot be uninstalled, nor disabled. Any force stop attempt, result in the app restarting itself.[231][232] The new permissions model is used only by applications developed for Marshmallow using its software development kit (SDK), and older apps will continue to use the previous all-or-nothing approach. Permissions can still be revoked for those apps, though this might prevent them from working properly, and a warning is displayed to that effect.[233][234]
In September 2014, Jason Nova of Android Authority reported on a study by the German security company Fraunhofer AISEC in antivirus software and malware threats on Android. Nova wrote that "The Android operating system deals with software packages by sandboxing them; this does not allow applications to list the directory contents of other apps to keep the system safe. By not allowing the antivirus to list the directories of other apps after installation, applications that show no inherent suspicious behavior when downloaded are cleared as safe. If then later on parts of the app are activated that turn out to be malicious, the antivirus will have no way to know since it is inside the app and out of the antivirus’ jurisdiction". The study by Fraunhofer AISEC, examining antivirus software from Avast, AVG, Bitdefender, ESET, F-Secure, Kaspersky, Lookout, McAfee (formerly Intel Security), Norton, Sophos, and Trend Micro, revealed that "the tested antivirus apps do not provide protection against customized malware or targeted attacks", and that "the tested antivirus apps were also not able to detect malware which is completely unknown to date but does not make any efforts to hide its malignity".[235]
In August 2013, Google announced Android Device Manager (renamed Find My Device in May 2017),[236][237] a service that allows users to remotely track, locate, and wipe their Android device,[238][239] with an Android app for the service released in December.[240][241] In December 2016, Google introduced a Trusted Contacts app, letting users request location-tracking of loved ones during emergencies.[242][243]
On October 8, 2018 Google announced new Google Play store requirements to combat over-sharing of potentially sensitive information, including call and text logs. The issue stems from the fact that many apps request permissions to access user's personal information (even if this information is not needed for the app to function) and some users unquestionably grant these permissions. Alternatively, a permission might be listed in the app manifest as required (as opposed to optional) and app would not install unless user grants the permission; user can withdraw any, even required, permission from any app in the device settings after app installation, but few users do this. Google promised to work with developers and create exceptions if their apps require Phone or SMS permissions for "core app functionality". The new policies enforcement started on January 6, 2019, 90 days after policy announcement on October 8, 2018. Furthermore, Google announced a new "target API level requirement" (
targetSdkVersion in manifest) at least Android 8.0 (API level 26) for all new apps and app updates. The API level requirement might combat practice of app developers bypassing some permission screens by specifying early Android versions that had more coarse permission model.[244][245]Licensing
The source code for Android is open-source: it is developed in private by Google, with the source code released publicly when a new version of Android is released. Google publishes most of the code (including network and telephony stacks) under the non-copyleft Apache License version 2.0. which allows modification and redistribution.[246][247] The license does not grant rights to the "Android" trademark, so device manufacturers and wireless carriers have to license it from Google under individual contracts. Associated Linux kernel changes are released under the copyleft GNU General Public License version 2, developed by the Open Handset Alliance, with the source code publicly available at all times. Typically, Google collaborates with a hardware manufacturer to produce a flagship device (part of the Nexus series) featuring the new version of Android, then makes the source code available after that device has been released.[248] The only Android release which was not immediately made available as source code was the tablet-only 3.0 Honeycomb release. The reason, according to Andy Rubin in an official Android blog post, was because Honeycomb was rushed for production of the Motorola Xoom,[249] and they did not want third parties creating a "really bad user experience" by attempting to put onto smartphones a version of Android intended for tablets.[250]
Only the base Android operating system (including some applications) is open-source software, whereas most Android devices ship with a substantial amount of proprietary software, such as Google Mobile Services, which includes applications such as Google Play Store, Google Search, and Google Play Services – a software layer that provides APIs for the integration with Google-provided services, among others. These applications must be licensed from Google by device makers, and can only be shipped on devices which meet its compatibility guidelines and other requirements.[87] Custom, certified distributions of Android produced by manufacturers (such as TouchWiz and HTC Sense) may also replace certain stock Android apps with their own proprietary variants and add additional software not included in the stock Android operating system.[86] There may also be "binary blob" drivers required for certain hardware components in the device.[86][128]
Richard Stallman and the Free Software Foundation have been critical of Android and have recommended the usage of alternatives such as Replicant, because drivers and firmware vital for the proper functioning of Android devices are usually proprietary, and because the Google Play Store application can forcibly install or uninstall applications and, as a result, invite non-free software; although the Free Software Foundation has not found Google to use it for malicious reasons.[251][252]
Leverage over manufacturers
Google licenses their Google Mobile Services software, along with Android trademarks, only to hardware manufacturers for devices that meet Google's compatibility standards specified in the Android Compatibility Program document.[253] Thus, forks of Android that make major changes to the operating system itself do not include any of Google's non-free components, stay incompatible with applications that require them, and must ship with an alternative software marketplace in lieu of Google Play Store.[86] Examples of such Android forks are Amazon's Fire OS (which is used on the Kindle Fire line of tablets, and oriented toward Amazon services), the Nokia X Software Platform (a fork used by the Nokia X family, oriented primarily toward Nokia and Microsoft services), and other forks that exclude Google apps due to the general unavailability of Google services in certain regions (such as China).[254][255] In 2014, Google also began to require that all Android devices which license the Google Mobile Services software display a prominent "Powered by Android" logo on their boot screens.[87] Google has also enforced preferential bundling and placement of Google Mobile Services on devices, including mandated bundling of the entire main suite of Google applications, and that shortcuts to Google Search and the Play Store app must be present on or near the main home screen page in its default configuration.[256]
Some stock applications and components in AOSP code that were formerly used by earlier versions of Android, such as Search, Music, Calendar, and the location API, were abandoned by Google in favor of non-free replacements distributed through Play Store (Google Search, Google Play Music, and Google Calendar) and Google Play Services, which are no longer open-source. Moreover, open-source variants of some applications also exclude functions that are present in their non-free versions, such as Photosphere panoramas in Camera, and a Google Now page on the default home screen (exclusive to the proprietary version "Google Now Launcher", whose code is embedded within that of the main Google application).[86][257][258][259] These measures are likely intended to discourage forks and encourage commercial licensing in line with Google requirements, as the majority of the operating system's core functionality (and in turn, third-party software), are dependent on proprietary components licensed exclusively by Google, and it would take significant development resources to develop an alternative suite of software and APIs to replicate or replace them. Apps that do not use Google components would also be at a functional disadvantage, as they can only use APIs contained within the OS itself.[260]
In March 2018, it was reported that Google had begun to block "uncertified" Android devices from using Google Mobile Services software, and display a warning indicating that "the device manufacturer has preloaded Google apps and services without certification from Google". Users of custom ROMs are able to register their device ID to their Google account to remove this block.[261]
Members of the Open Handset Alliance, which include the majority of Android OEMs, are also contractually forbidden from producing Android devices based on forks of the OS;[86][262] in 2012, Acer Inc. was forced by Google to halt production on a device powered by Alibaba Group's Aliyun OS with threats of removal from the OHA, as Google deemed the platform to be an incompatible version of Android. Alibaba Group defended the allegations, arguing that the OS was a distinct platform from Android (primarily using HTML5 apps), but incorporated portions of Android's platform to allow backwards compatibility with third-party Android software. Indeed, the devices did ship with an application store which offered Android apps; however, the majority of them were pirated.[263][264][265]
Reception
Android received a lukewarm reaction when it was unveiled in 2007. Although analysts were impressed with the respected technology companies that had partnered with Google to form the Open Handset Alliance, it was unclear whether mobile phone manufacturers would be willing to replace their existing operating systems with Android.[266] The idea of an open-source, Linux-based development platform sparked interest,[267] but there were additional worries about Android facing strong competition from established players in the smartphone market, such as Nokia and Microsoft, and rival Linux mobile operating systems that were in development.[268] These established players were skeptical: Nokia was quoted as saying "we don't see this as a threat," and a member of Microsoft's Windows Mobile team stated "I don't understand the impact that they are going to have."[269]
Since then Android has grown to become the most widely used smartphone operating system[270][271] and "one of the fastest mobile experiences available".[272] Reviewers have highlighted the open-source nature of the operating system as one of its defining strengths, allowing companies such as Nokia (Nokia X family),[273] Amazon (Kindle Fire), Barnes & Noble (Nook), Ouya, Baidu and others to fork the software and release hardware running their own customised version of Android. As a result, it has been described by technology website Ars Technica as "practically the default operating system for launching new hardware" for companies without their own mobile platforms.[270] This openness and flexibility is also present at the level of the end user: Android allows extensive customisation of devices by their owners and apps are freely available from non-Google app stores and third party websites. These have been cited as among the main advantages of Android phones over others.[270][274]
Despite Android's popularity, including an activation rate three times that of iOS, there have been reports that Google has not been able to leverage their other products and web services successfully to turn Android into the money maker that analysts had expected.[275] The Verge suggested that Google is losing control of Android due to the extensive customization and proliferation of non-Google apps and services – Amazon's Kindle Fire line uses Fire OS, a heavily modified fork of Android which does not include or support any of Google's proprietary components, and requires that users obtain software from its competing Amazon Appstore instead of Play Store.[86] In 2014, in an effort to improve prominence of the Android brand, Google began to require that devices featuring its proprietary components display an Android logo on the boot screen.[87]
Android has suffered from "fragmentation",[276] a situation where the variety of Android devices, in terms of both hardware variations and differences in the software running on them, makes the task of developing applications that work consistently across the ecosystem harder than rival platforms such as iOS where hardware and software varies less. For example, according to data from OpenSignal in July 2013, there were 11,868 models of Android device, numerous different screen sizes and eight Android OS versions simultaneously in use, while the large majority of iOS users have upgraded to the latest iteration of that OS.[277] Critics such as Apple Insider have asserted that fragmentation via hardware and software pushed Android's growth through large volumes of low end, budget-priced devices running older versions of Android. They maintain this forces Android developers to write for the "lowest common denominator" to reach as many users as possible, who have too little incentive to make use of the latest hardware or software features only available on a smaller percentage of devices.[278] However, OpenSignal, who develops both Android and iOS apps, concluded that although fragmentation can make development trickier, Android's wider global reach also increases the potential reward.[277]
Research company Canalys estimated in the second quarter of 2009, that Android had a 2.8% share of worldwide smartphone shipments.[279] By May 2010, Android had a 10% worldwide smartphone market share, overtaking Windows Mobile,[280] whilst in the US Android held a 28% share, overtaking iPhone OS.[281] By the fourth quarter of 2010, its worldwide share had grown to 33% of the market becoming the top-selling smartphone platform,[282] overtaking Symbian.[283] In the US it became the top-selling platform in April 2011, overtaking BlackBerry OS with a 31.2% smartphone share, according to comScore.[284]
By the third quarter of 2011, Gartner estimated that more than half (52.5%) of the smartphone sales belonged to Android.[285] By the third quarter of 2012 Android had a 75% share of the global smartphone market according to the research firm IDC.[286]
In July 2011, Google said that 550,000 Android devices were being activated every day,[287] up from 400,000 per day in May,[288] and more than 100 million devices had been activated[289] with 4.4% growth per week.[287] In September 2012, 500 million devices had been activated with 1.3 million activations per day.[290][291] In May 2013, at Google I/O, Sundar Pichai announced that 900 million Android devices had been activated.[292]
Android market share varies by location. In July 2012, "mobile subscribers aged 13+" in the United States using Android were up to 52%,[293] and rose to 90% in China.[294]During the third quarter of 2012, Android's worldwide smartphone shipment market share was 75%,[286] with 750 million devices activated in total. In April 2013 Android had 1.5 million activations per day.[291] As of May 2013, 48 billion applications ("apps") have been installed from the Google Play store,[295] and by September 2013, one billion Android devices have been activated.[296]
As of February 2017, the Google Play store has over 2.7 million Android applications published,[297] and As of May 2016, apps have been downloaded more than 65 billion times.[298] The operating system's success has made it a target for patent litigation as part of the so-called "smartphone wars" between technology companies.[299][300]
Android devices account for more than half of smartphone sales in most markets, including the US, while "only in Japan was Apple on top" (September–November 2013 numbers).[301] At the end of 2013, over 1.5 billion Android smartphones have been sold in the four years since 2010,[302][303] making Android the most sold phone and tablet OS. Three billion Android smartphones are estimated to be sold by the end of 2014 (including previous years). According to Gartner research company, Android-based devices outsold all contenders, every year since 2012.[304] In 2013, it outsold Windows 2.8:1 or by 573 million.[305][306][307] As of 2015, Android has the largest installed base of all operating systems;[19] Since 2013, devices running it also sell more than Windows, iOS and Mac OS X devices combined.[308]
According to StatCounter, which tracks only the use for browsing the web, Android is the most popular mobile operating system since August 2013.[309] Android is the most popular operating system for web browsing in India and several other countries (e.g. virtually all of Asia, with Japan and North Korea exceptions). According to StatCounter, Android is most used on mobile in all African countries, and it stated "mobile usage has already overtaken desktop in several countries including India, South Africa and Saudi Arabia",[310] with virtually all countries in Africa having done so already (except for seven countries, including Egypt), such as Ethiopia and Kenya in which mobile (including tablets) usage is at 90.46% (Android only, accounts for 75.81% of all use there).[311][312]
While Android phones in the Western world commonly include Google's proprietary add-ons (such as Google Play) to the otherwise open-source operating system, this is increasingly not the case in emerging markets; "ABI Research claims that 65 million devices shipped globally with open-source Android in the second quarter of [2014], up from 54 million in the first quarter"; depending on country, percent of phones estimated to be based only on AOSP source code, forgoing the Android trademark: Thailand (44%), Philippines (38%), Indonesia (31%), India (21%), Malaysia (24%), Mexico (18%), Brazil (9%).[313]
According to a January 2015 Gartner report, "Android surpassed a billion shipments of devices in 2014, and will continue to grow at a double-digit pace in 2015, with a 26 percent increase year over year." This made it the first time that any general-purpose operating system has reached more than one billion end users within a year: by reaching close to 1.16 billion end users in 2014, Android shipped over four times more than iOS and OS X combined, and over three times more than Microsoft Windows. Gartner expected the whole mobile phone market to "reach two billion units in 2016", including Android.[314] Describing the statistics, Farhad Manjoo wrote in The New York Times that "About one of every two computers sold today is running Android. [It] has become Earth's dominant computing platform."[19]
According to a Statistica's estimate, Android smartphones had an installed base of 1.8 billion units in 2015, which was 76% of the estimated total number of smartphones worldwide.[315][316][a] Android has the largest installed base of any mobile operating system and, since 2013, the highest-selling operating system overall[305][308][318][319][320] with sales in 2012, 2013 and 2014[321] close to the installed base of all PCs.[322]
In the second quarter of 2014, Android's share of the global smartphone shipment market was 84.7%, a new record.[323][324] This had grown to 87.5% worldwide market share by the third quarter of 2016,[325] leaving main competitor iOS with 12.1% market share.[326]
According to an April 2017 StatCounter report, Android overtook Microsoft Windows to become the most popular operating system for total Internet usage.[327][328] It has maintained the plurality since then.[329]
In September 2015, Google announced that Android had 1.4 billion monthly active users.[330][331] This changed to 2 billion monthly active users in May 2017.[332][333]
Adoption on tablets
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Despite its success on smartphones, initially Android tablet adoption was slow.One of the main causes was the chicken or the egg situation where consumers were hesitant to buy an Android tablet due to a lack of high quality tablet applications, but developers were hesitant to spend time and resources developing tablet applications until there was a significant market for them. The content and app "ecosystem" proved more important than hardware specs as the selling point for tablets. Due to the lack of Android tablet-specific applications in 2011, early Android tablets had to make do with existing smartphone applications that were ill-suited to larger screen sizes, whereas the dominance of Apple's iPad was reinforced by the large number of tablet-specific iOS applications.
Despite app support in its infancy, a considerable number of Android tablets, like the Barnes & Noble Nook (alongside those using other operating systems, such as the HP TouchPad and BlackBerry PlayBook) were rushed out to market in an attempt to capitalize on the success of the iPad.[336]InfoWorld has suggested that some Android manufacturers initially treated their first tablets as a "Frankenphone business", a short-term low-investment opportunity by placing a smartphone-optimized Android OS (before Android 3.0 Honeycomb for tablets was available) on a device while neglecting user interface. This approach, such as with the Dell Streak, failed to gain market traction with consumers as well as damaging the early reputation of Android tablets. Furthermore, several Android tablets such as the Motorola Xoom were priced the same or higher than the iPad, which hurt sales. An exception was the Amazon Kindle Fire, which relied upon lower pricing as well as access to Amazon's ecosystem of applications and content.
This began to change in 2012, with the release of the affordable Nexus 7 and a push by Google for developers to write better tablet applications.[341]According to International Data Corporation, shipments of Android-powered tablets surpassed iPads in Q3 2012.[342]
As of the end of 2013, over 191.6 million Android tablets had sold in three years since 2011. This made Android tablets the most-sold type of tablet in 2013, surpassing iPads in the second quarter of 2013.
According to StatCounter's web use statistics, as of August 15, 2017, Android tablets represent the majority of tablet devices used in South America (57.46%)] and Africa (69.08%), while being a distant second to iOS in North America (25.29%) and Europe (32.64%), despite having sizeable majorities in many Central American, Caribbean, and Eastern European states.) and representing the majority in Asia (51.25%)notably in India (65.98%)[350] and Indonesia (82.18%).Android is an extremely distant second at 11.93% in Oceania as well, mostly due to Australia (10.71%) and New Zealand (16.9%), while in some countries such as Nauru over 80% of tablets are believed to use Android.[352] As well, Android is more often than not used by the minority of web users in Antarctica, which has no permanent population.
In March 2016, Galen Gruman of InfoWorld stated that Android devices could be a "real part of your business [..] there's no longer a reason to keep Android at arm's length. It can now be as integral to your mobile portfolio as Apple's iOS devices are". A year earlier, Gruman had stated that Microsoft's own mobile Office apps were "better on iOS and Android" than on Microsoft's own Windows 10 devices.
Platform usage
Android 8.0 Oreo has overtaken as the single most popular version at 20.82%, and v. 8.0 plus v. 8.1 combined are most popular on every continent. Globally they are at 33% according to StatCounter (in North America those versions plus later Pie are at 47.45%).[356] Google's own official statistics this section otherwise has, from October 2018, are outdated.
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This section needs to be updated. (December 2018)
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Charts in this section provide breakdowns of Android versions, based on devices accessing the Google Play Store in a seven-day period ending on October 26, 2018.[357][b] Therefore, these statistics exclude devices running various Android forks that do not access the Google Play Store, such as Amazon's Fire tablets.
| Version | Code name | Release date | API level | Runtime | Distribution | First devices to run version |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 9 | Pie | August 6, 2018 | 28 | ART | < 0.1% | Essential Phone, Pixel, Pixel XL, Pixel 2, Pixel 2 XL, Nokia 7 Plus, OnePlus 6, Oppo R15 Pro, Sony Xperia XZ2, Vivo X21UD, Vivo X21, Xiaomi Mi Mix 2S[358] |
| 8.1 | Oreo | December 5, 2017 | 27 | ART | 7.5% | Pixel, Pixel XL, Nexus 6P, Nexus 5X |
| 8.0 | August 21, 2017 | 26 | ART | 14.0% | N/A | |
| 7.1 | Nougat | October 4, 2016 | 25 | ART | 10.1% | Pixel, Pixel XL |
| 7.0 | August 22, 2016 | 24 | ART | 18.1% | Nexus 5X, Nexus 6P | |
| 6.0 | Marshmallow | October 5, 2015 | 23 | ART | 21.3% | |
| 5.1 | Lollipop | March 9, 2015 | 22 | ART | 14.4% | Android One |
| 5.0 | November 3, 2014 | 21 | ART 2.1.0 | 3.5% | Nexus 6, Nexus 9 | |
| 4.4 | KitKat | October 31, 2013 | 19 | Dalvik (and ART 1.6.0) | 7.6% | Nexus 5 |
| 4.3 | Jelly Bean | July 24, 2013 | 18 | Dalvik | 0.4% | Nexus 7 2013 |
| 4.2 | November 13, 2012 | 17 | Dalvik | 1.5% | Nexus 4, Nexus 10 | |
| 4.1 | July 9, 2012 | 16 | Dalvik | 1.1% | Nexus 7 | |
| 4.0 | Ice Cream Sandwich | October 19, 2011 | 15 | Dalvik | 0.3% | Galaxy Nexus |
| 2.3 | Gingerbread | February 9, 2011 | 10 | Dalvik1.4.0 | 0.2% | Nexus S |
Legend:
Old version
Older version, still supported
Latest version
Latest preview version
Future release
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As of October 2018, 78.9% of devices have OpenGL ES 3.0 or higher.
Application piracy
In general, paid Android applications can easily be pirated. In a May 2012 interview with Eurogamer, the developers of Football Manager stated that the ratio of pirated players vs legitimate players was 9:1 for their game Football Manager Handheld. However, not every developer agreed that piracy rates were an issue; for example, in July 2012 the developers of the game Wind-up Knight said that piracy levels of their game were only 12%, and most of the piracy came from China, where people cannot purchase apps from Google Play.
In 2010, Google released a tool for validating authorized purchases for use within apps, but developers complained that this was insufficient and trivial to crack. Google responded that the tool, especially its initial release, was intended as a sample framework for developers to modify and build upon depending on their needs, not as a finished piracy solution.[362] Android "Jelly Bean" introduced the ability for paid applications to be encrypted, so that they may work only on the device for which they were purchased.
