BANGALORE, INDIA: As we witness the growing market share for Android in India and abroad, it can be touted as the leading mobile operating system.

According to a recent report from ABI Research, shipment of Android-based smartphones in Asian markets will see a surge with market share increasing to 52 per cent in 2011, up from 16 per cent in 2010.

This means it's a huge opportunity for the big Indian developer community to leverage the benefits of Android ecosystem.

In an interaction with CIOL, Dr. R. Venkateswaran, SVP, Head of Strategic Business at Persistent Systems said, “The backing of Google and the tighter integration with Google’s applications such as Gmail, Picasa, Google+, Maps, Latitude etc can fuel further growth of the Android OS worldwide.”

Dr Venkateswaran also discussed the growth of Android OS,  competition between Apple and Google and growing opportunities for developers.

CIOL: How do you see Indian companies adopting Android in tablet PCs?

R Venkateshwaran: In India, close to 70 per cent of the 1.2 billion population has access to mobile phones, and it is one of the fastest growing telecom markets in the world. According to a report by IDC, India Quarterly Mobile Handsets Tracker, 3Q 2010, Android takes nearly 9 per cent share in Indian smartphone market against 2.9 per cent in the previous year. This growth trend for Android will continue in India, even globally, where Android today enjoys 52 per cent market share.

Tablets provide a good intermediate solution between a smartphone and laptop/PC. They have a reasonably comfortable screen-size, are lightweight, have a long battery life and have a very rich and intuitive user interface.

Further, most tablets are based on Android, given its open platform unlike Apple’s iOS platform. The hardware specifications for recent tablets match (or even exceed) the specifications for the recent laptops. Currently, there are many Indian players, including mobile handset manufacturers, who are developing Android-based tablets that are quite affordably priced between Rs. 10000-20000.