The strategy here for Microsoft is pretty obvious. Windows is becoming a tablet OS first and foremost. However it is at best a 3rd target for app developers, once they have finished their iOS and Android versions.

Natively supporting an Android app store allows them to get apps so users will want to buy the hardware, which in turn generates market share that gets developers interested.

Even in Windows 10, on hybrid laptops it is already a better experience than most Android tablets.

Around here when people aren't carrying an iPad, they are most certainly carrying either a Surface or a foldable Windows laptop.

> ”Games”: hard to say, because Windows is a better platform for games than Android by 10x.

Note that there are quite a few commercial "Android on PC" emulators already, e.g. https://www.memuplay.com/, https://www.bluestacks.com/ and https://www.bignox.com/.

In terms of scale, Bluestacks claim they have 50 million monthly active users which makes them pretty substantial! From https://www.bluestacks.com/promote-your-game.html. Overall mobile gaming revenue is now larger than console gaming and more than 2x PC gaming, and rapidly growing (https://scaletech.medium.com/mobile-gaming-statistics-trends...). Android gaming is a much bigger market than you'd imagine, especially for the younger generation.

> hard to see how it competes with the median user getting an iPhone

> This is the case with the consumer in China, where ... the iPhone is still preferred by those who can afford it

I think you're seriously overestimating how popular iPhones are, even to users who can afford them. Especially if you're looking at Windows users, Android is hugely dominant outside the US.

In China for example, iOS market share is actually constant around 20% or maybe slightly declining over the last decade (https://www.statista.com/statistics/262176/market-share-held...) despite the huge increase in average purchasing power, which makes it seem unlikely that the only thing holding people in China back from them is the price.

Globally, Android is at 70% of devices (https://gs.statcounter.com/os-market-share/mobile/worldwide) even in relatively wealth areas like the EU. iOS is primarily popular in the USA (where it's about 60% of devices). I suspect iOS and Mac usage are fairly closely correlated, so the Android percentage goes up substantially if you're only looking at Windows users. I think Android integration actually makes a lot of sense for Microsoft!

I use Bluestacks to run home automation programs.

It subjects me to ads for third-rate games that I can't imagine people play. First-tier Android games like F/GO and Genshin Impact seem to be disabled on non-phone devices, particularly Bluestacks and Android TV. I see a huge amount of fan art from those games, but I wonder if gaming on Bluestacks is just a Potemkin Village.

One example: Freefire is one of the largest mobile first person shooters with more than 100M monthly active users. "Pro" players and streamers tend use to BlueStacks.

It's probably more that Genshin Impact has an actual Windows client than any indictment of Android emulation.

Bluestacks is a scam, they use your VM to gin up download counts for its customers, app developers.

I wish most win users were ok with android emulators because they are great. Performance is fantastic. But 99% of users refuse to take the extra step of first installing an "app to run an app". Windows could have as easily integrated one of these emulators into the OS which would have allowed for using Google services (unsure about legality of this) but they have chosen to compete with Google which isn't a bad thing since it improves competition

> In China for example, iOS market share is actually constant around 20% or maybe slightly declining over the last decade

So a user count comparable to 100%+ of the US phone user population?

Yes - but meanwhile Android at 70% of global mobile users (~5 billion people) has an install base more than 10x larger than the entire US population.

It is not a small market, there's (I assume) a good correlation with Windows users, and it's not a bad idea for Microsoft to be looking at potential integrations here.

There are some high quality creative apps on Android for things like photo editing, drawing, video editing etc. This could disrupt the space in which Adobe currently operates. Android could add a lot of diversity to windows in terms of productivity and creative apps.

I think a possible advantage is also integration with Teams and OneDrive. Aandroid apps don't tend to use file stored in directory structures. You use the share menu instead and maybe some pickers for photos and downloads. This could integrate well into their cloud ecosystem. Save app data to OneDrive and have sharing menus work between the two. You could even have tabs in teams that show an Android app and store the data in the team. Corporate IT departments might prefer that to voluminous directory structures and vendor management.

Android apps running on windows to compete with adobe apps built for Windows...you must be kidding!

I for one can't wait to run my little hobby app that I develop for Android on Windows, sounds like fun. I agree though, many typical users will not use this except for the categories you lay out. But I do think that "Median phone user ecosystem" may be bigger than you think - India and China are not small markets.