900,000 activations a day?

[VaporPunk]

Oh my!

According to this, Google is activating almost a million new Android devices a day. A day.

Effing awesome. Unless you own Apple or MS stock.

[Canuck_in_Japan]

I don't think people with Apple stock are worried. Still, 900k is nothing to sneeze at. One of those Android activations was me the other day and I am LOVING it. It will be a cold day in Hell when I go back to Apple.

[steven522]

I'm not sure about other areas, but other employees where I currently work are discovering android tablets as a good replacement for netbooks and/or notebooks for business travel. With the alternative apps and ease of remote desktop back to the office PC, android powered portable devices are becoming more of a standard.

[afv011]

Wasn't Android supposed to be doomed after Oracle's lawsuit? Oh, wait, no, fragmentation was supposed to doom Android. Wait, wait, no, it is patent suits, isn't it? Or wasn't it the poor battery life?

[rdfry]

Yeah F Oracle and Apple. Long live Android.

[VaporPunk]

Originally Posted by Canuck_in_Japan

I don't think people with Apple stock are worried. Still, 900k is nothing to sneeze at. One of those Android activations was me the other day and I am LOVING it. It will be a cold day in Hell when I go back to Apple.

Well, not yet, anyway. But soon, hopefully...

[RainingLemur]

I wonder if these are NEW activations (like...straight from the box) and not including people who are flashing ROMs, refurbished units, etc...

Either way, that's a metric crap-ton of devices. Every day.

[afv011]

Originally Posted by RainingLemur

I wonder if these are NEW activations (like...straight from the box) and not including people who are flashing ROMs, refurbished units, etc...

Either way, that's a metric crap-ton of devices. Every day.

Re-activating a device does not count. Also, Google only counts devices that ship with their suite of apps; there are may builds out there without the Google apps (like nooks and fires), so the numbers are actually higher.

[Dopedangel]

I don't think this is that amazing. In the next 2 years with cheaper and more powerful processors I expect smartphones to outsell dumbphone in countries like India, China and Indonesia that have about 2.5 billion users between them. So once Android reaches 3-4 Million activations a day then you can call it amazing.

[madsquabbles]

cheaper phones with more expensive plans... at least in america (north (united states of)).

[Marseille]

Originally Posted by VaporPunk

Unless you own Apple or MS stock.

MS's mobile income mostly comes from patent trolling against Android makers. I feel increasingly comfortable calling it trolling since the one company that didn't fold and fought the claims -- B&N -- got MS to give THEM money. So MS stock holders are probably pretty happy.

[murraypaul]

Originally Posted by David Marseilles

MS's mobile income mostly comes from patent trolling against Android makers.

In fact I'm pretty sure I saw a breakdown that MS make more directly from each Android device sold that Google do. (Obviously Google make money indirectly from advertising and on-device sales.)

[murraypaul]

Originally Posted by David Marseilles

I feel increasingly comfortable calling it trolling since the one company that didn't fold and fought the claims -- B&N -- got MS to give THEM money.

... for a portion of the Nook business, an agreement to develop software for Window 8 and Windows Phone, and an agreement to use Microsoft backend billing services, and in return B&N agreed to pay Microsoft's patent licencing fees in the future. (Of course we don't know what level those fees were negotiated to, they could be minimal.)

Edit: The Patent Agreement is here: http://www.faqs.org/sec-filings/1204...K/ex10-3.htm#b
But is subject to so much redaction as to provide very little information, these lines being great examples:

“[***] Functionality” means functionality that (i) associates [***] displays [***] or (ii) [***] and displays [***].
“[***] Functionality” means (i) a [***] system with one or more [***] that are able to [***]; (ii) software that [***]; or (iii) any combination of (i) and (ii), or portions thereof, wherein the primary function of the foregoing (i), (ii) or (iii) is to [***].

The commercial agreement is here: http://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/da...191/ex10-2.htm
Interestingly, it requires B&N to push the Nook out into further geographies, which they haven't managed at all so far.

[ScotiaBurrell]

Originally Posted by afv011

Wasn't Android supposed to be doomed after Oracle's lawsuit? Oh, wait, no, fragmentation was supposed to doom Android. Wait, wait, no, it is patent suits, isn't it? Or wasn't it the poor battery life?

How are hardware makers profiting?

I read htc is in trouble. maybe only google makes money.

[Marseille]

Originally Posted by ScotiaBurrell

How are hardware makers profiting?

I read htc is in trouble. maybe only google makes money.

HTC is in trouble because Samsung stole their thunder, and Samsung is making plenty of money. Samsung's super popular wares give them incredible leverage with carriers in the subsidy system, so they can crank up profits. HTC used to have similar influence, but now are having to make due with less income per set while needing to spend more per sale to counter Samsung's mojo.

Google's income is far less direct. There's some app revenue, more as the tablet market grows where carriers can't extort a cut of app sales, but Google is still an ad company. I can't prove it, but I'd wager Google still hasn't turned a real profit on Android given all their investment and how minimal their revenue is. They just spent $12b on Motorola, and despite whining to the contrary, they'll probably end up handicapping Motorola's profitability, not favoring the company over other manufacturers (they're expanding the Nexus program already to avoid even the appearance of favoritism). They give Android away and haven't made a dime even off market revenue on the millions of the most popular Android tablets, the Nooks and Kindle Fire.

Google looked 10 years out, saw a world where the internet was more mobile than not, and given that 99% of their revenue is online ad revenue, figured if they didn't get serious about mobile, they'd join Yahoo, AOL and MySpace on the ash heap of tech history. Android is still more leverage than it is a product. Lots of tech writers think that has changed under new management, but I think Google is just making their leverage a little sleeker and slightly more versatile, not transforming it into a commodity.