Google: 300,000 Android Phones Activated Each Day

Google CEO Eric Schmidt declared that around 200,000 Android phones were being sold each day

The declaration came from Andy Rubin, Google's vice president of engineering and the creator of the mega-popular Android mobile operating system, via Twitter. "There are over 300,000 Android phones activated each day," Rubin Tweeted Thursday.

That figure was backed up by Dan Morrill, an Android program manager at Google. "It's true, I look at the data daily. It's inspirational," Morrill wrote via Twitter.

If the number is indeed true, then it would give Android smartphones a slight edge over Apple's iPhone. In October, Apple CEO Steve Jobs criticized Google's contention that Android is an open platform and argued that the mobile OS was extremely fragmented. Furthermore, Jobs claimed that the iPhone was seeing 275,000 activations a day.

But now Google has stormed back to top Apple's number in the ever-escalating smartphone platform war. And recent market research appears to support Google's contention that Android is growing faster than any other smartphone platform. Last month, NPD Group put Android smartphones ahead of the iPhone for third-quarter market share, while Canalys released similar data that showed Android had grown faster than its chief rival.

If recent history has taught us anything, then Apple should have a rebuttal coming soon.