Android device activations reach 700,000 per day - Page 3

TROLL

Gosh, it sure seems that Google is a propoganda machine of late.

Touting 700k activations without defining "activations" is simply misleading.

Between the crap flowing from Schmidt, and now Rubin, I dont know who is the better liar.

they did define activations...the mere fact that you choose not to accept that definition doesn't mean that they didn't define it.

\

Apparently you didn't read the article you're commenting on. It includes Google defining what activations means. Spend a minute with the AI article and it will all become clear.

Um, ok.

Define activations.

...are there a dozen or so posts here debating the metric in the first place???

It's what you did when you bought your iPhone. You activated it with a carrier so it could be used as one.

Because many here find the facts too hard to accept. To the fear, they add uncertainty and denial.

No, there's a dozen doubters perhaps looking for some way to brush the statement away.

Google considers an activation to be just what most of us would. You buy a smartphone and have a carrier activate it so it can be used as one. Google's activation numbers don't include resold devices (repeats) or software updates, with each device only counted once. The numbers also don't include any forked versions of Android since they don't have a license to Google services. Asian knock-offs, the Kindle Fire, the Nook Color or any other device not offering a license to Google services aren't counted in their activation numbers.

Are you still confused?

700k android devices. (define devices???)

Sure, most are phones, and the release says they are new activations...

But isnt in the realm of possibility that Google is inflating these numbers for media hype?

Corporate execs have done far less to bolster their position in highly competitive markets.

You might be one of those I mentioned earlier then. There are going to be certain posters who won't trust any answer other than one that comes from Apple.

I don't think there's anything else that might satisfy you if "in the realm of possibility" is the threshold.

slappy - FTW.

http://www.quirksmode.org/blog/archi...hone_sale.html

In 2010 298 million smartphones were sold worldwide, up from 175 million in 2009, for a growth rate of 70%.

At 700k Android device activations, per day, you're looking at 255.5 million devices.

Sorry, but that's 86.7% of total world wide sales last year for smart phones.

I'm impressed with their percentage of the Smartphone Market profits.

Samsung reveals some real numbers:

http://phandroid.com/2011/01/28/smar...s-coming-soon/


Now this is the reality check.

The Profits to Revenue is a real eye opener.

Imagine the Revenue and Profits results for 280 Million iOS sold devices.

Sorry, but the race to the bottom is exactly where Samsung and the rest of the Android world is headed.

Thanks for that info.

Google is in the advertising game. Not the phone game. So their agenda IS to bloat and gloat.

Serves their purposes.

Your info supports my point exactly. Activations sounds sexy, but what is it relative too?

To Googles agenda, 7,000,000 per day would be a better number to flaunt.

So when you complained about the lack of balance sheet numbers it wasn't with regard to activations then? Your original post wasn't clear to me. What you really wanted to know is how much profit Google is seeing from all the Android activity, correct? I think directly it would still be zero. I don't pay enough attention to quarterly details for any of the mobile players (I don't have a financial interest in any of them) to know how much they break down the numbers so that specific revenue sources can be ID'd

Your calculations actually support Rubin's numbers. At 70% year over year growth rate of the smartphone market, we could expect close to 500 million smartphones sold for 2011 (calculated from your first sentence).

At an yearly average of 500k activations per day, you're looking at close to 180 million Android devices per year.

That makes Android's share close to 36% on average for 2011. It will be lower in the beginning and higher at the end of the year.

The number 86.7% that you calculate is wrong, since you base it on 2010's smartphone sales but end of 2011 Android activations.

There are many measure of business success, including, but not limited to;
- Annual / Quarterly revenues
- Annual / Quarterly profits
- Cost control
- Profit Margin
- Market Capital Value
- Market share
- R&D investment
- Green credentials
- No of employees - direct
- No of employees - as a direct consequence of supplier relationships
- Creation of new business opportunities (i.e. developers on your platform)

So the argument that Apple is failing because it doesn't dominate market share is madness. Every business has it's target audience, so you can opt for high volume but know that margins will be slim, or opt for high margins at the consequence of market share, or a balance of both.

Would you consider Ferrari a failed company? It is no-where in market share of the whole car market, but is a high margin / low volume business.

Is Wal-mart a failure because it operates on slim margins? No, it has volume!

Looking at the Personal Computer market;
- Yes MS Windows still dominates, but how much money does Microsoft make per PC sold versus how much money does Apple get per Mac sale?
- What was the Microsoft anti-trust case about? Yes, giving products away. Sound familar?
- Apple's market share continues to grow, even in the post-PC era.

So if you look at the smartphone market in detail you find,
- Apple takes the majority of sale profit
- Apple gains further revenues from each iOS device through sales on the App Store and iTunes
- Developers are attracted to iOS as it has been shown that iOS customers spend more on apps that those of other platforms
- Android is becoming very fragmented with numerous versions and variations as a result of manufacturer modifications. This makes it less likely that users will get updates, or if they do, it may be only one major update plus minor updates.
- Android phones are often seen as a stepping stone for those coming from the a non-smartphone but cannot afford the iPhone. This is something Apple is addressing by keeping the 3GS but at a lower price point.

Then look at Google's business model;
- why do they give Android to handset manufacturers for free? Because that this not where they see the money. Money comes from two sources; targetted advertising and selling your information to 3rd parties for advertising purposes.
- this business model only works when the number of eyeballs is maximised. That is why Google has so many free services and products.

Finally, consider these points;
- High market share means that you become the main target for scammers. Have you read recently about the Malware on the Android marketplace??
- Do you really want your usage of your handset to be sold so that advertisers can target you??

Lets wait a couple of years and then judge who has 'won' and who has 'failed', and even if Android is still supported by Google!?!

Nobody is making such an argument. Apple is not failing, quite the contrary. Remove the straw man, and the rest of your post becomes obviously pointless.

Now this is the reality check - it's 2011 and it was estimated that 115 million smartphone were sold in Q3.

The retort to "where are the profits", or "as one manufacturer Apple is winning" are defeatist.

Apple may well catch Android next year - that 700K is not insurmountable, and seems to be a slowdown in the rate of growth.

The bullish arguments for this quarter are 32M iPhones, 18M iPods, 13.5 M iPads.

Assume 9M of the iPods are iPod touches, you get 32M + 9M + 13.5M = 54.5M.

Thats about 600K a day, and Android has just reached 700K - week before Christmas, it will drop off during and after Christmas.

Apple is still sitting on large margins, and is not available everywhere - i.e. not really in Brazil, no presence in India, not on All Chinese carriers. Lower prices next year - I mean off contract - including a lower priced iPad, and a cheap as chips 3GS, along with the IP4, IP4S and iP5.

Apple hasn't really even competed yet - not on phones anyway. ASP is too high. They may not ever, but if they do they can win a lot of this back.

There are overlapping markets here. Apple is 1st among the niche market of people who use mobile applications. They are probably 1st in the niche market of those who use their smartphone as a smartphone. You can of course skew statistics in any way you want, but Android is trailing in many places that put them at a competitive disadvantage. If you look at statistics like retention, profit, diversity of apps, and app store sales then Android is significantly trailing. Most of these Android phones are also built to a lower quality then the iPhone they are compared to. This is like comparing a Chevy Aveo to a Toyota Camry. Obviously they are not aimed at the same markets.

I hope that a multitude of companies are profitable so I can get a good selection of phones to choose from. Different phones for different people. I love new tech and buy the latest and greatest. My wife just wants a good phone to talk on.

One reason:

4g

At my desk on At&t iphone I get .12mb download on speedtest
my coworker on verizon 4g droid... 12mb. 100x faster than my iphone

Granted the wireless provider is a major factor, but those with iphones on sprint or verizon arent much better. My phone is basically unusable during the day


the iphone wave that ran through my building a few years ago and put 100+ iphones into the hands of my coworkers, is now bringing 4g droid phones

Apple will not catch Android next year because that's not its game. Market Share can't buy anything but bragging rights. Apple is the #1 smart phone manufacturer (Samsung doesn't release actual numbers).

Apple sells you an ecosystem. Samsung, HTC, etc. sells you a phone. Google sells you.

The larger absurdity is comparing activation of a piece of hardware, the iPhone, with the activation of freebie software running on countless cheap doodads.

There are some very strange arguments in this thread.

In a market where there are at least 4 significant players (Android, iOS, BlackBerry and WinMob), having 30% of the market is enormous regardless of how much the leader has. Additionally, given that iPhone users seem to be far more likely to purchase their software, and given the target hardware is much more stable, developers will continue to support the platform and software quality will continue to be higher. I don't think iOS or Apple in general will be going anywhere.

Look at gaming - PCs Vs Consoles. How many copies of Call of Duty were sold on PC? How many on Xbox or PlayStation? The question is will the phone market mirror the PC market, or the console market in terms of 'open' Vs 'closed'. Sales of devices only profit the handset makers (HTC, Samsung, Apple etc) - but unless the software can make money too, the ecosystem doesn't survive.

Apple 'failed' in the 80's because it didn't get the software companies onside, for a whole host of reasons. That is not happening now, the situation is completely different.

You contradict yourself. If they are selling an eco-system they need overall market leadership, or a large share. . you also contradict Tim Cook, who points to the 95% yet to get (in all phones), and which he is interested in.

Its ok to compare platforms.

And whether this is an issue depends on several other questions including

1. What's the rate of deactivation for each. Returns hurt the bottom line after all.

2. How much does Apple etc make on each phone they sell. That Apple is getting half the number of activations means less if they make 3 times as much on each device

Apple will "activate" 600K iOS devices this Q.

only relevant in the US.

Why is no one stating the obvious when they announce these "numbers"?

If Apple was to let the top 5 Android phone companies (Samsung, Motorola, LG, HTC etc.) use iOS then Android would be dead by the summer of next year.

Those companies would literally break their necks to put iOS on their phones.

So activate all you want Android... Your winning because Apple is letting you... Dance Puppet....Dance!

I'm sure iPhone activations are pretty high too, but most likely, in all reality, they're not going to be as high as Android, since they're not matching the sheer volume of devices the numerous Android mfgs are cranking out.

Of course Apple shouldn't crank out as many devices as the Droid people, cause that just leads to fragmentation and instant obsolescence. But, IMHO Apple has failed to produce enough variety of devices to satisfy the number of customers that they should.

There is only 1 model of iPhone (old versions don't count). By contrast, even Apple produces 5 different notebooks (3 MacBook Pro, 2 MacBook Air). Apple should produce 3 different iPhone models. That should be sufficient. It's called choice, and customers like that, because one size really does not fit all. If there was more choice in the Apple camp, they'd see more activations - possibly more than all the Droids combined - now that would be awesome. I think Apple should make a 3", 3.5", and a 4" iPhone5. There, done.

Well said.

Yet it seems that most people are OK with being sold.
They could not care less.
They'd rather be sold than buy into a 'closed' Apple ecosystem.
Strange world...

Actually some would argue that they switched to Intel because using speciality chips was too expensive.

And that the change in focus from "what would the super tech geeks and creative pros want" to "we're focusing on the consumers because they are the larger group" is what saved Apple. Not the fact that you can put Windows on a Mac. Because lets face it, if I want to run Windows I'm going to go with a $500 machine not the same specs at $1200. Mac OS and the easier to get services that Apple created with their retail stores are what appealed to the common man, most of whom still don't know that you can put Windows on your Mac hardware

We're all being pwned by the likes of Slappy. Why do we respond to the stupidly irrational, nonsensical strawman arguments of these types that continue to infest AI? It' like watching politicians on Meet The Press respond to questions from the moderator. They don't answer the questions, they ignore them, and spout the day's talking points instead.

Realize that the Slappy types have only the market share argument going for them. They have nothing else to talk about. Sales, profits, quality, reliability, customer satisfaction, apps, mindshare, even advertising are never touted because they "lose" big time on all those points. So shut them up by ignoring their market share trolls. To do otherwise is to be caught in their trolling nets. Slappy is sitting at his cheap PC right now laughing his ass off at the replies he got.

Which one of the two claimed to be sterile, so he could get out of paying child support for his out-of-wedlock daughter who was on welfare? Oh wait, that was Steve Jobs.

Where did Rubin specifically state most of that?

There was no mention at all of "Google services".

Having what to do with anything? We're not talking about that.

Short term memory. That was explained the LAST time the number was updated/announced.

"Google and a representative said that it does not include upgrades and only includes devices that run Google services. So forks of Android built by some Asian manufacturers who don’t license Google services would presumably not be counted."