Google: We’re Activating 700K Android Devices Each Day

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Photo by Joi - http://flic.kr/p/5uw2cn
Photo by Joi - http://flic.kr/p/5uw2cn

How many Android-powered devices are in use? Android promoter and Google Vice President Andy Rubin shed some light on the question Tuesday night. Rubin said 700,000 devices are being activated by carriers each day. However, the figure could confirm reports earlier this week that Android’s growth has slowed following a red-hot summer.


Talking to his Google+ followers, Rubin said each device counts as one activation. An activation “means you go into a store, buy a device, put it on the network by subscribing to a wireless service,” he explained. The announcement is the latest since June, when Google reported 550,000 daily Android activations. One month earlier, the Mountain View, Calif. company announced 500,000 activations.

If the same progression continued, Rubin should have announced more than 700,000 for the latest Android device tally. The Google VP’s numbers though could confirm a reported decline in mobile ads served to Android devices. Tuesday, we reported that mobile ad firm Millennial Media discovered the percent of requests from Android devices fell to 50 percent in November, down from 56 percent of mobile ad requests in October. In a related report, consumer researchers at The NPD Group found Android-based smartphones stayed level at 53 percent of the market from the start of 2011 until October.

The growth of Android activations appear to have quieted the usually-talkative Apple marketing machine. In contrast to the past, when thge Cupertino, Calif, company would laud iOs activation numbers, the company hasn’t updated the figures since the end of the three-month September quarter, when CEO Tim Cook announced sales of more than 250 million iOS devices.

One area where Apple still leads Android is tablets, a market where most non-iPad devices have struggled. The introduction of the Amazon Kindle Fire tablet may shave off some of Apple’s lead to just below 60 percent. Despite problems convincing consumers to buy the Motorola Xoom, Google wants to try again. The Android developer announced recently it will create a tablet “of the highest quality” to compete against the iPad in the first half of 2012.

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