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The big issue with Scala on Android is the size of the Scala runtime, which is around 5 MB. Kotlin's is about 900 KB if I recall correctly. I like to see it as a "mini" Scala for Android. Just like Scala, it's a pleasant language to write in.

Yes, you pretty much have to use proguard when programming in Scala on Android.

The other problem I had using Scala on Android is that the very nature of the Android SDK forces you to work in a way that is very Java-ish. There are some libraries that try to provide a nice Scala layer on the top of the Android SDK, but it never covers everything so you always end-up writing ugly Javaish Scala code.

I faced the same problem with JavaFX. .asScala calls everywhere!

It doesn't help that the community shuns Android tooling instead of embracing it like Kotlin does.

It seems that Scala has much more uptake on Android than Kotlin will ever have.