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BY EVAN THOMAS
The world might not have been expecting big news out of Google this week, with the impending
iPhone announcement from Apple.
But Google’s director of Android product management Hugo Barra posted on Google+ Tuesday
night: Android has cleared 500 million worldwide activations.
Memeburn suggests some hot sellers have been helping Android’s numbers along.
For example, Samsung’s flagship Galaxy SIII, reportedly sold 10 million devices within
two months of its launch in May of this year. And 100 days after launch it had moved 20
million units.
But as VentureBeat explains, sales alone aren’t enough to determine success in the smartphone
market.
“There’s no question that Android is winning the smartphone numbers game, but Google still
has a lot to prove when it comes to adding that extra level of polish and making OS updates
easily available.”
As it stands now, Android devices are running on a handful of different OS versions.
Most of it is spread across three different generations - Froyo has 14 percent of the
market; its successor Gingerbread has the majority stake, with 57.5 percent; and Ice
Cream Sandwich holds 20.9 percent. The latest version, Jelly Bean, is still only on flagships,
with 1.2 percent.
Some suggest Google is deflecting attention, however briefly, from the Apple noise that’s
building to a peak ahead of Wednesday’s expected iPhone 5 announcement. Marketing
Pilgrim says it’s a trend that’s likely to continue.
“Until Google and the Android platform can get more unified and more people can actually
take advantage of improvements in the Android OS… Apple is going to dominate no matter
what the Android activation numbers are.”
If Android keeps up its daily activation rate, the platform could see a billion devices worldwide
at some point in summer 2013.