I think OP is suggesting that the ability to sideload is what is preventing their phones being distributed in China.

If you can present a "locked down" phone to regulators, you might be more likely to get permission to sell large volumes of them - like iPhones in China.

> I think OP is suggesting that the ability to sideload is what is preventing their phones being distributed in China.

This comment is insane in several different ways.

There's nothing preventing Google's phones from being distributed in China. They already are distributed in China.

Those phones won't come with the vendor OS installed; they'll come with an OS that works without a hitch in China.

One of the modifications to the local OS will be to make sideloading trivial, since that's how you're expected to install apps.

If you did start selling phones with a stock Android OS in China, those phones wouldn't work because their connections to Google services would all be blocked.† The reason for that block has nothing to do with sideloading or even with phones. It's going to stay in place.

† In my experience, it's still possible to receive pushes from Google while you're in China. For example, you can't connect to the Play Store, but if you visit the Play Store in a browser on a different device that can dodge the Great Firewall, and tell it that you want to install something to your phone, Google will reach out and make the install to your phone even if your phone isn't dodging the firewall.

But there still won't be Google Services so what extra money is Google to make there? The markup on hardware. But they have to compete with local manufacturers with the very same OS. At least Apple is the only manufacturer selling phones with iOS.