“Google’s mobile operating system Android may be winning the smartphone wars with over 75 percent market share. But Apple and Microsoft could be making more from Android than Google — up to 600 percent more next year,” John Koetsier writes for VentureBeat.
MacDailyNews Take: Puleeze. Market share is but one metric and taken alone hardly signifies “winning.” For example: Apple utterly dominates mobile device market with 6% market share – and 77% of the profits. Who’s really winning?
“This past weekend Apple and HTC signed a patent cross-licensing deal that, according to one analyst, could see Apple collect between $6 and $8 for each and every Android smartphone HTC sells. And Microsoft, which has been working on licensing its patents to Android manufacturers for a number of years and has licensing deals with LG, Acer, Samsung, and many other companies, collects as much as $5 per device,” Koetsier writes. “Google, on the other hand, though it has not broken out Android revenue, has been calculated by Asymco as recently as April of this year — based on data Google was forced to reveal in court filings — as low as $1.70 per Android device, per year. Even if it’s $2, that’s only a sixth as much as the combined $12 that Microsoft and Apple could make for each Android smartphone.”
Koetsier writes, “That assumes, of course, that Microsoft collects royalties from all Android manufacturers … and that Apple will duplicate its HTC licensing deal with Samsung and all the other smartphone companies.”
Read more in the full article here.
Mobile licensing could be M$’s sole business venture in a few years time.
Nice. Truth sometimes hidden under the superficial press opinions.
This is worrisome..
Having huge profits is great but markets hare is also very very important.
If the masses adopt a platform till it becomes a permanent fixture then it will somehow be forced onto others.
Apple need to re look towards its own history with IBM and Intel chips.
How long did it take to abandon a failing ideology and embrace the norm?
Apple should really nip this in the bug.
Attack android NOW not later.
Don’t bother Samsung or HTC or Nokia…Stop ANDROID.
Market share is a great measure of a platform’s viability, not of an open source OS that others can take and build their own platforms from.
The fact is, Android is mostly replacing feature phones, a fairly small portion of Android is to “smartphone” users. Most people who buy a mobile phone end up with Android. They know nothing about what a smartphone is or even care – it has a big screen and they can Facebook, YouTube and text on it.
iOS is the only mobile platform that is actually making sustainable money, which will guarantee its survival.
Kindle is the second closest, and Amazon is losing money.
It’s already too late. Apple opened the door for Android when they signed an exclusive deal with AT&T when the iPhone first came out. This gave Android a solid foothold, because people on other carriers didn’t want to switch and were forced to buy an iPhone alternative.
Apple didn’t know about Android until a few months after the iPhone was released, and then it would be almost another year before the first crappy Android devices came out.
No other carrier wanted to carry the iPhone (more likely: no other carrier would accept all of Apple’s demands and conditions), not even AT&T apparently. Remember it was Cingular that took the risk, AT&T just inherited the contract when they bought Cingular, and lucky for AT&T that they did.
Apple made a contract with AT&T because they decided to accept changes to there network that Apple was requesting. Only, after Verizon rejected any changes. Verzion wanted control over the iPhone and Steve did not want carrier control over software and hardware usability. So history has Apple signing an exclusive with AT&T. Verizon had to give up some control as time passed because of Apple and the original iPhone.
In the developed world, iOS is still the king. Majority of those android activations come from the developing world (places like China, India, Indonesia, Malaysia, Brazil…) where an android phone can be bought for an equivalent of about $200. The cheapest iPhone is still well over $500, and this is well beyond reach of majority of population in all those countries. Not to mention that the $200 android device becomes $0 with a subsidy (even in the developing world), whereas even with the cheapest iPhone, you still must sign for a hefty data plan, and even then, you need to pay $200 upfront, which is prohibitive for those not in the developed world.
As far as market share is concerned, app developers are not really expecting any revenue from the developing world’s share of the android market. Therefore, with the massive fragmentation, anemic hardware, carrier restrictions on features and functionality and the platform’s notorious preference for free, there should be no surprise that even with the 75% share of the smartphone market, it can still barely reach 30% of the apps volume of iOS, not to mention significantly lower level of revenue from those apps.
iOS is quite safe from Android’s market share domination. At least for now. And it is unlikely this will significantly change in the future (until Android somehow gets 95% share in the market. I can’t see such a thing happening, though).
it’s like milking dairy cows, isn’t it
Well, this isn´t what Jobs wanted. He wanted to kill Android because it is a stolen product, he din´t wanted the money..
This war will end as did Mac OS and Windoz. Unfortunately for Jobs, he brought in a Mole to the board… And failed to license mobile patents when Apple collaborated with Motorola on that lame iTunes compatible phone.
Had Apple had a license with Motorola and Nokia… They would have had a ‘cheap’ license (since no one believed the iPhone would be successful).
And they would have had free reign to sue the pants out of All Android phone makers…
Truth is Apple could never have supplied the world of smartphones on it’s own…
But bleeding Android is one way to kill it. Just ask George Washington.
Only 600%. Sandbagger.
Google only made android to keep their search cash cow relevant in a changing industry although someone else making more money off android must burn their asses on some level.
Of course Apple could make 600% more than Google from Android. Google’s not making any money from Android. If you take into the overhead, they’re probably losing money.
Apple makes more money from iPad covers than Google does from Android.
Hey, when Schmidt hands you lemons…