MicroG

2023: Russian Android smartphone manufacturers use MicroG project

Russian manufacturers Android-smartphones use the MicroG project, which allows you to bypass the restrictions Google associated with the refusal of the American corporation to grant a license to Google Mobile Services (GMS; it includes,, YouTube Google Play maps, etc.). This became known on May 11, 2023.

According to Kommersant, the MicroG add-on, which involves the use of services without their official installation, allows Russian smartphone manufacturers to position their devices as international. For this reason, they do not have, as one of the interlocutors said, a pre-installed RuStore store.

Russian smartphone manufacturers have found a way to bypass Google's restrictions

According to one of the sources of the publication, Russian manufacturers by May 2023 are working on meeting the requirements for pre-installation of applications, but this process needs automation and is still moving more slowly than large companies.

The article notes that Russian manufacturers of smartphones and tablets running the Android operating system - Aquarius, BQ, F +, Ayya T1, Dexp, almost all of them produce equipment in China. According to the source of the newspaper, some Chinese factories expressed concerns about Google's warning about possible "de-authorization in the event of cooperation with Russian manufacturers."

One of the newspaper's interlocutors suggested that Google cannot always track the ultimate beneficiaries of the licenses that Chinese factories receive. Pen & Paper lawyer Victor Rykov noted that tracking the ownership structure of foreign counterparties "in general causes difficulties," and information about the owners of companies has never been completely public.

Vitaly Mankevich, chairman of the Russian-Asian Union of Industrialists and Entrepreneurs, believes that "the Russian market is important for Google, so the company will try to maintain its position." One of the newspaper's sources among electronics manufacturers estimated the number of users of Google products in Russia at 100 million people.^[1]

Notes