For Google, Android matters a lot. But a recent post from Guardian cites dismal revenue generation from Android for Google alone.
According to the post, Google has generated (estimated) $550 million, from early 2008 to Dec 2011, from Android alone. Compared to Google’s revenue of $38 billion in 2011, which mainly comes from desktop search related advertisements, the revenue generated from Android appears to be quite low. Not surprisingly, Google has never disclosed such figures ever, but if estimates of Guardian has to be believed, then just 1{af589cdba9d77786c8c861317dbad60bba1e2ebbf56e2ffab874a1b59fde9ce3} of Google’s total revenue comes from Android mobile OS.
The calculations of Android revenue are based on Google’s patent infringement settlement with Oracle, which claimed that Google’s Android OS has infringed its patents & copyrights of Java programming language, which later acquired from Sun Microsystems in Dec 2010. In fact the post also reveals that Apple’s iPhone devices generated (through use of Google Search & Maps) four times more revenue than Google’s own Android devices.
At the end of Dec 2011, there’re 200 million Android devices activated, including estimated 90 million in past two years. So it appears that Google has generated slightly more than $10 per Android device per year. If we compare this with Google’s main revenue stream, generated from desktop search related advertisements from 1.25 billion Windows PC, then Google has made $30 per PC per year, which is three times higher than Android revenue, mainly from mobile devices like tablets & mobile phones.
After acquiring Android Inc in 2005, Google lead Android Open Source Project, under which Google makes OS freely available, but earns revenue from Android Market app store & related advertisements. Google is tasked to maintenance & development of Android OS under the initiative.
