Google's Android has generated just $550m since 2008, figures suggest

According to The Guardian Google's Android platform generated less than $550m in revenues for the company between 2008 and the end of 2011.  Google provided data as part of a settlement offer with Oracle ahead of an expected patent and copyright infringement trial.  If the data provided is an accurate guide, Google makes next to nothing on Android.


The Guardian piece goes on to say that Google generates more revenue from the iPhone through it's maps and Google search apps via Safari than it does android devices.  Let's make it perfectly clear that Google does not report revenue by segment in this fashion.  These calculations are based upon The Guardian reporting and their analysis.


If this analysis holds true, it could create real problems for Google when Apple goes away from Google map apps which Apple announced they would this week.


Highlights from the full Guardian article here

• With roughly 200m Android devices having been activated to the end of 2011, including an estimated 90m during the past two years, it suggests that Google derives slightly more than $10 per Android handset per year.
• That compares to Google's $38bn total revenues in 2011, almost entirely derived from advertising on PCs, of which there are 1.25bn installed worldwide, according to Microsoft. That suggests an average revenue for Google of about $30 per PC per year, though not all will be capable of accessing the internet or will use Google, so the actual figure will be higher.
• The figures emerge from a damages offer that Google made to Oracle as part of settlement talks ordered by Judge William Alsup in the case, in which Oracle is alleging that Android infringes patents and copyright that it owns on the Java programming language. It acquired that intellectual property when it bought Sun Microsystems, which owned Java, in 2010. The trial is due to start on 16 April.

• Google has however talked up mobile generally as key to its future. Larry Page, Google's chief executive, said during an earnings call in Octoberthat Google was "seeing a huge positive revenue impact from mobile, which has grown 2.5 times in the last 12 months to a run rate of over $2.5bn."
• But while some people interpreted that to indicate Android revenue, it overlooked Google's deal with Apple, in place since the introduction of the iPhone in 2007, through which it provides maps and the default search engine for its iPhone, iPad and iPod Touch products, which run Apple's iOS software. Apple's chief executive Tim Cook said the company has sold 315m iOS devices, though nearly half of those have been sold in the past year.