

500 Million Android devices activated globally - martythemaniak
https://plus.google.com/u/0/110023707389740934545/posts/R5YdRRyeTHM

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TazeTSchnitzel
Probably more than that, I would imagine there are plenty of Android devices
that don't phone home. (Kindle Fire, for instance)

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ge0rg
Now this is really perfect timing to steal attention from the upcoming Apple
press event. One might wonder if the time of the announcement is just
accidental.

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bookwormAT
the announcement was last week at a motorola press event, so ...

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foolano
Is there any data on how many of those users spend money on apps?

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potatolicious
Almost certainly substantially less than iOS users, which I suppose is the
point you were going for, but I think that whole rabbit hole is a red herring.

The model of "sell apps to people for money" no longer works. We've depleted
that gold mine (or vespene geyser, if you will). The only people who are
having any fun on mobiles right now are services with mobile portals (think
Yelp, AirBnb, eBay, etc) and sketchier-than-not "social gaming" apps.

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mnicole
Citation needed.

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enraged_camel
Statistics like this are not very meaningful. The only reason there are so
many Android devices globally is because Google licenses the OS to crappy
Asian handset makers.

I mean, it's not like 500 million people are using a high-quality device like
Galaxy S3.

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cbs
_it's not like 500 million people are using a high-quality device like Galaxy
S3._

Sure, they don't have the latest greatest shiny, but so what? Its still market
penetration, and unlike people just chasing shiny toys, they're looking for
tools. And that's what they now have, a powerful tool that almost entirely
everything the s3 does.

It doesn't have the most powerful graphics, and that userbase might mean
targeting a lower API level. Thats about it.

I really don't see where you're going with that statement.

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enraged_camel
>>I really don't see where you're going with that statement.

I thought my statement was pretty simple. If there are two operating systems,
and one is sold exclusively with a high-quality device, and the other is sold
very cheaply with shitty phones, then when the latter's manufacturer says "we
have 500 million devices running our OS" everyone is going to go "well, duh!"

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nmridul
That is 500 million potential users who would use google for search, use
picasa to upload their photos or even Use Google Drive to store their data and
Use Google+ for networking.

The mobile internet is well developed and affordable to even common man in
most of the Asian countries.

And for a service like Google+, the it makes sense to have more people on the
network.

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Dirlewanger
I wonder what Google plans to do once, in a year's time or so, Android's
userbase begins to slow, just as Facebook's has.

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wutbrodo
Well there's a key difference; Google doesn't exactly _need_ continued super-
rapid user growth on Android. The reason slowing growth is a problem for
Facebook is that it's the only way they could justify their valuation (or more
importantly, grow their company), other than better monetization of users,
which is their other Big Challenge.

Also, the hypergrowth of Android is essentially driven just by the hypergrowth
of mobile devices (since it's the most accessible OS for manufacturers and
thus consumers across the world). The point of Android for Google was to
foster this rapid growth of smartphone adoption without being under the thumb
of a single vendor (especially one as capricious and overbearing as Apple). If
it ever gets to the point that the world is saturated with smartphones, Google
probably won't care that Android isn't the majority of that growth anymore.

