why are you excluding China? A few hundred million of Android phones without Google services isn't enough of a proof that Android is a great product even without Google services?
It's a weird market for political reasons, including the chinese government's attempt to grow domestic software and industries. Partly due to this, they're not really part of the same internet market as anyone else -- notice how all of china's big internet companies are home grown. So I don't think it's really proof of much.
Well, now that's an entirely different question. "Would Android have worked without google apps?" versus "Can a stripped version of Android compete with an entrenched Google Apps version of Android." Big difference. Either way, the lack of access to Google Play apps hurts Amazon Fire a lot more than lack of bundling with any previous Google services.
