As Google starts rolling out the details of its latest system, Android 10 Q, the company is also revealing some information about the Android system since its inception about a decade ago. Android’s senior director, Stephanie Cuthbertson, announced at the ongoing Google I/O 2019 developer conference that the Android system now has about 2.5 billion devices worldwide. This is really a great achievement for Android. However, the actual number of Android users should be more than the figure given above. This is because the figure given by Stephanie Cuthbertson is based on Google Play Store statistics thus non-Google Play Store devices such as China’s Android devices will are not integrated.
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Google earlier announced that at least 21 phones from 13 brands (including Pixel) will get the latest system today. The likes of Sony, OnePlus, Nokia, LG, Asus, Vivo, and Xiaomi are all scheduled to receive this update as it lands. All Pixel phones including the maiden Google Pixel will get this update. Other smartphones which will get this update include. As expected, the new system will come with a couple of new features including full-screen swipe gestures, dark theme and more. Nevertheless, OEMs will eventually decide the features that are worth retaining and those that it needs to tweak.
The problem for Google though is that despite the Android installed base of 2.5 billion being a bit over twice the size of Apple’s 1.2 billion active iOS devices, Apple’s mobile platform generates 90% more revenue for third party developers than Android according to App Annie. No wonder apps still generally come out first and all too often exclusively for iOS.
And poor old Google can’t make up the difference in advertising as iOS users generate 75% of Google’s mobile search revenue according to Goldman Sachs.