Android growing 250% year-on-year, with over 300 million total devices worldwide

To coincide with Mobile World Congress, Google has announced its latest figures for the growth of the Android ecosystem.

The company reports a year-on-year growth rate of more than 250%, with 850,000 new Android devices activated each day. Google says that this means that the total number of Android devices around the world has topped 300 million.

Google doesn’t tend to give out total numbers of Android devices very often, preferring to publish activations-per-day rates. These were at 700,000 per day in mid-December, and the company says it saw 3.7 million activations over Christmas weekend 2011 alone. Now at 850,000 per day, it seems that Android growth is accelerating fast.

Meanwhile, there are 450,000 apps on Android Market – that’s triple the amount just one year ago, when Google announced 150,000 total apps.

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Of course, it’s worth noting that Android is a diverse operating system, with users running a wide variety of version numbers, from comparatively primitive builds up to the latest version, 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich. Until now, Ice Cream Sandwich has run on a minuscule number of devices – just 0.6% in early January. With new device announcements at MWC, that’s set to change.

Google promises more news from Mobile World Congress and we’ll bring you it as it emerges. We might even get one of our team on-site at MWC to take a trip down the Android stand’s slide, just for kicks.

Keep up with all The Next Web’s Mobile World Congress coverage here.