I'm a Malaysian who can read, write and speak Chinese. After adding Chinese language input to the android keyboard, I had difficulty typing and getting the Pinyin right. I'm not sure why it was so difficult to type in Chinese words until I changed the Pinyin scheme from Double Pinyin (双拼) to Full Pinyin.
Apparently Double Pinyin (双拼) makes typing much faster. Instead of typing “中华人民共和国 as (zhōnghuárénmíngònghéguó), you can type in "vshwrfmngshego" (v=zh, s=ong, h=h, w=ua, r=r, f=en, m=m, n=in, g=g, s=ong, h=h, e=e, g=g, o=uo) instead. As for me, it is better to change to full Pinyin as it's more easier to type in even if it's slower.
In China, a lot of people also find it hard to type mandarin characters fast so voice messages are more popular than instant messaging.