Eric Schmidt Explains Why Android Could Earn Google $10 Billion a Year
Kevin Krause
“If we have a billion people using Android, you think we can’t make money from that?” Those were Eric Schmidt’s words when confronted with the notion of how exactly Google plans to turn a profit off of their Android OS that they so readily hand out free of charge. He isn’t just talking about the typical ads Google uses to make gains in almost every facet of their enterprise, either. If there were 1 billion Android users coming into contact with Google’s ads through mobile search and apps like Google Maps raising that figure might be easy to reach, but Schmidt also has his sights set on a second source of income: selling subscription services such as access to news content.
As it stands there aren’t quite that 1 billion users on Android yet, though that isn’t to say their rapidly growing market share makes the number unrealistic looking towards the future. With current activation rates of 160,000the 1 billion figure would take 17 years to attain, though month over month activations show growth of 60 percent, meaning that if Google can reach rates of about half a million activations per day they could reach the 1 billion number in about five years. Of course, even without 1 billion users Android still stands to make a pretty penny for Google as the platform continues to get a strong footing in the mobile market.
