Local smartphone developers could face unfair competition, think tank says

China's smartphone market is heavily dependent on overseas operating system developers like Google Inc and Apple Inc, and this supremacy could have local developers facing unfair competition, according to a government think tank.

"Google strictly controls the core technologies, and Chinese companies are under constant threat of business discrimination from the US company," said the China Academy of Telecommunication Research under the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology.

The academy said that Apple, owner of the iOS system, has also built a "gigantic" ecosystem in China, with newcomers having little chance of survival.