Google looks for $10bn revenues driven by Android
On course for a billion data-hungry users worldwide, says CEO Schmidt
Published: 30 July, 2010
READ MORE: Google | Advertising | Applications | Android
Google may not make any direct revenues from the Android operating system, but CEO Eric Schmidt thinks it can generate $10bn a year from the platform in terms of advertising and content download fees. In an interview with The Wall Street Journal, he commented: "If we have a billion people using Android, you think we can't make money from that?"
He said that 160,000 Android devices are being activated every day, and a user base of a billion worldwide is feasible. At that point, Google believes it would make an average $10 a year from each Android user, via use of its ad-supported services and also from its share of fees for content and apps downloads. Of course, such assumptions depend on Google keeping its services on the Android homescreens, rather than seeing these devices preinstalling rivals like Microsoft Bing or China's Baidu.
Schmidt will be cheered by two developments this week - news that Android smartphone users consumer even more data and web services than notoriously bandwidth hungry iPhones, and the spread of the Google platform into new mass markets such as India. According to analysis by Validas, Verizon smartphone users use about 450Mb of data a month, while iPhone users average 350Mb, and BlackBerry users across all carriers less than 50Mb. Most of Verizon's smartphones are Android, and Validas says the firm is "attracting a lot of hardcore geeks that really want to push the limits of these devices. The iPhone's been around longer, and there are a lot more casual users." Sprint CEO Dan Hesse recently said that customers of its Android-based HTC EVO consume 3.5 times more data than other smartphones on the network, though this is partly because the EVO supports the broadband WiMAX connection as well as 3G.
Meanwhile, Android is starting to come to the massive markets of China and India. Huawei entered the Indian market this week with two handset families running the Google OS, called Hangout and, in something of a failure of imagination, Android. The Hangout series is targeted at young people focused on social networking and the Android range - the U8300 and U8500 - are more powerful smartphones.
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