San Francisco, Oct 9 (IANS): The US based search giant Google is making it compulsory for smartphone manufacturer to ship devices with Android 10 after January 31, 2020.

After the above mentioned date, Google will only approve new devices running the latest Android version, Android 10 and the company will stop approving new devices running Android 9 Pie.

The information regarding company's move was spotted in the latest version of Google's GMS requirements.

GMS means Google Mobile Services and it includes a suite of Google apps and services licensed by its OEM (original equipment manufacturer) partners, XDA Developers reported.

GMS suite contains apps like the Google Play Store and Google Play Services and lack of GMS means devices won't come pre-installed with Google services.

As per report, in order to be approved to preload GMS, OEMs must submit the software builds for each device they make to Google for approval.

The approval process includes meeting the requirements in the Compatibility Definition Document (CDD) and the GMS Requirements document, passing automated test suites like the Compatibility Test Suite (CTS), Vendor Test Suite (VTS), and Google Test Suite (GTS).