According to Google’s CEO Eric Schmidt, Google is now activating 200,000 Android-powered handsets a day, a significant rise from the 160,000 handsets it was activating before last month’s earnings call and the 100,000 handset activations at Google I/O in May.
Schmidt, who was speaking to reporters at the Techonomy Conference in California, attributes the sharp rise in activations to the recent releases of the HTC Evo 4G and the bold marketing strategy from Motorola and Verizon with the Droid X.
He also expressed delight at the recent successes of the Samsung Galaxy S, a handset that is available on all US carriers and is enjoying high demand in over 100 countries, stamping Android’s dominance on the worldwide market.
Fortune did a little math and worked out what impact Google’s latest set of statistics would have on its competitors, namely Apple. They worked out that at its current rate, Google would sell 18 million Android devices a quarter. Taking into account Apple’s sales of its iOS devices which include 9.41 million iPods, 8.4 million iPhones and 3.27 million iPads, Apple is able to surpass that mark by a little margin.
At the moment most Android activations are made up of smartphones, with tablet devices starting to gain traction in an attempt to rival the huge success of the iPad. Samsung, Motorola and LG are looking to introduce their own Android tablets, the number is only set to grow.
Apple sells its own products whereas Google gives manufacturers its OS for free, there are two different models in action. Twenty manufacturers producing handsets versus a company that produces just its own handsets. It does need to be put in a little more perspective but it doesn’t take away how far Google has come with its operating system.
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