Google Android Sells 1 Million Devices Every 5 Days
Google CEO Eric Schmidt said on Wednesday that about 200,000 Google Android devices are sold per day, according to a Reuters report.
"It looks like Android is not just phenomenal but an incredibly phenomenal success in its growth rate," Schmidt told reporters on the sidelines of the Techonomy conference in Lake Tahoe, California, where he spoke on a panel earlier, Reuters reported.
By Schmidt's estimate, 1 million Google Android devices are sold in five days, or 6 million per month. That's an increase over the 160,000 activated each day during the second quarter and the 65,000 activated daily during the first quarter.
Google Android this week has been billed the top mobile OS, outpacing iPhone and BlackBerry by several market research firms, and on Thursday iSuppli also waved the Android flag, noting that "Google Inc. is expected to prevail in a key battleground for its wireless ware with Apple Inc., as the smartphone market share of the Android Operating System (OS) rises to surpass that of the iPhone's iOS in 2010."
According to iSuppli's predictions, Google Android will be used in 75 million smartphones by 2012, a massive jump from the 5 million in 2009. Meanwhile, iOS usage will amount to 62 million in 2012, an increase from the 25 million in 2009.
That increase will give Android a 19.4 percent hold of the global smartphone OS market in just two years. Google only held a 2.7 percent mobile OS share last year. And as Android continues to climb, the Apple iPhone and iOS will slip. iSuppli predicts that iOS share will shrink to 15.9 percent in 2012, down from 13.9 percent in 2009. Come 2014 Android will have 22.8 percent of the global mobile OS market while iOS will have 15.3 percent.
"Android is taking the smart phone market by storm," Tina Teng, senior analyst, wireless communications, for iSuppli, said in a statement. "The OS started with entry level models in 2008, but the flexibility Android offers for hardware designs and its appealing business model in terms of revenue sharing have attracted vigorous support from all nodes in the value chain, including makers of high-end smart phone models. Cell phone OEMs representing all tiers of the industry have committed to support Android, including Motorola, Samsung, Sony Ericsson, LG, Huawei, AsusTek and ZTE. This broad industry support will allow the Android OS’s usage and market share to exceed that of its chief rival – iOS - in 2012, just five years after its introduction."
Others are also catching on to Google Android's momentum and its current trajectory to outpace chief rivals like the Apple iPhone and BlackBerry smartphones. The Nielson Co., Canalys and The NPD Group this week all trumpeted the market dominance for which Google Android is bound. Most market watchers credit the myriad hot smartphones that leverage Google Android for the OS's swift momentum.
The NPD Group's latest research found that Android accounted for 33 percent of all smartphones bought in the second quarter, beating out BlackBerry and the iPhone, which raked in 28 percent and 22 percent, respectively. NPD noted that 2010's second quarter makes the first time since the fourth quarter of 2007 that RIM played second fiddle and didn't hold the No. 1 among operating systems in handsets sold to U.S. consumers.
Meanwhile, The Nielsen Co. revealed that 27 percent of people who bought a smartphone over the six months that ended in June picked Android, while 23 percent went with the iPhone; and research firm Canalys found that Google Android's smartphone shipments exploded by 886 percent in the second quarter of 2010 versus the second quarter in 2009.