During Google’s Q2 2013 financial earnings conference call, two numbers were thrown out there that you need to know. One, Android devices (phones, tablets, microwaves?) are being activated at the rate of 1.5 million every 24 hours. To give you an idea of why that’s so significant, Nokia just announced that they sold 7.4 million Windows Phones in three months. In Android-land, that’s less than five days worth of sales.
The second biggest number is app downloads: 50 billion and counting. Apple reached the same milestone just a little over two months ago, so it’s nice to see Android catching up. Whether developers are making any money off Google Play is another story altogether, and something I’m not going to touch since I’m going to annoy everyone. So where do things go from here? Only up. Smartphones only recently came to represent over 50% of new phone sales, which means there are still millions of people who buy dumbphones every day. Android will, thanks to market dynamics, eventually be able to put inside a sub $50 devices that aren’t a total joke. When will that happen is the big question.
