Why Google is confident that Android is as secure as iOS?

Google is very confident with the system protection of malicious applications on their Android platform to help users more secure during use.

Since May last yeah, David Kleidermacher has become Google's chief security officer, responsible for keeping Android, Google Play, and Chrome OS safe. In its annual Google security report, Kleidermacher says Android is as safe as its competitors. Although not explicitly stated, it is not surprising that this is alluded to iOS.
According to a new report released, Kleidermacher said that Android security has made a significant leap forward in 2017, and many of our protections are leading the industry. Even third-party data shows Google's advances in security.

To keep the Android phone safe requires users to adhere to some security rules. For example, Google says Android devices only download apps from the Google Play Store that have the potential to hide potentially harmful apps (PHA) less than 9 times.

In addition, Android-powered devices have Google Play Protection services, which are protected by Google Play Protect, a scanning system used to detect PHA on the device itself, data, and embedded in the app. With this technology, you can also find lost Android devices, protected from phishing sites, and take advantage of PHA's detection and removal system.

Google says the annual probability for PHA downloads from Google Play has fallen by half from 2016 to 2017, 0.04% and 0.02%, respectively. Last year, Google said that daily scans from Google Play Protect removed 39 million PHA from about 1 million devices.