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Google’s Sundar Pichai has just announced (on Google+) that Android device activations have surpased 1 billion! This is a major milestone for Google, a company who is striving to have as many activations as there are people in this vast world. While we’re quite a bit far off from that happening, there’s no doubt Android has been like an unstoppable steam train over the years. And Google has mentioned they would settle for a short-term goal of getting to 10% of the world’s population.
It was just a few short months ago that Google announced Android reached 900 million activations. That number has been spiraling out of control since the operating system launched in 2008, with bigger and more lofty records being set as the years tick by.
It felt like only yesterday that we were wondering whether analysts’ expectations of Android becoming the world’s #1 operating system by 2015 could be accurate, but those expectations have already been met well ahead of time. Android has been hoving around that 50% mark for quite some time now according to the likes of IDC and Gartner, and the momentum doesn’t seem to be falling off one bit.
Onward, we say! New devices are coming, new innovations are being drawn up, and new goals are being set, and all of that is sure to begin once IFA Berlin introduces us to a whole slew of new products from the world’s leading manufacturers starting this week.
Way to miss the main point of Sundar’s tweet: Android KitKat, aka 4.4.
http://m.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-23926938
Google has just Sold out and pimped out android.
I’m really surprised there isn’t a story on this yet…
You sound like the kind of person who hands out ‘healthy treats’ to kids on Halloween
Lol, I was thinking the same thing. Sundar even attached a pic in his g+ post
Android KitKat! Break me off a piece of that.
Isn’t kitkat a name brand though?
Wrong article, methinks. ;)
I wonder of disqus is not switching articles and comments sections again. There are at least three Kit Kit comments here from the same time.
So much for Steve Jobs destroying android. I thought it was even going to go thermonuclear…
well apple have tried, and will keep on trying!.
They need to just focus on their own products and serve their customers.
Its easier to sue products off the market than to create a better product.
Speaking of Steve going thermonuclear: http://youtu.be/GvPlAyTG4ik
I know I’m responsible for 6, to date.
1 billion is a cumulative number, right? Going to take some work to hit 10% since most people have contributed to the total at least a couple of times.
I just read the quoted article and immediately wondered where 9/3/13-3/31/14 went.
And half of those activations are from people putting a new rom on every other day.
wrong!
If that was true, there would be 2 billion. Typically a user that changed ROM’s often, has done it at least 10 times in the last 4 years.
That’s not an activation
That’s an interesting point. I’m not a hacker, so please explain how that works, and why it would – or would not – be an activation.
as much as they’d like to see such an inflated number, I think google and all their numerical analysis would be genius enough to use device hardware identifier to make a unique activation. maybe they’d record primary google account and that hw identifier, but probably not.
wait… no 1bil download sale?!? :(