Android Top Mobile OS, But Making Little Money

Android is installed on about 50% of smart phones worldwide, but is only now starting to make little money according to Larry Page, Google's CEO. In recent earnings call Larry Page called Android a young product with lots of potential. “But we see a lot of potential for us to make money on Android, and you’ll see us increase that a lot over time,” he added. “It’s hard to give you details about that right now, but I’m very, very optimistic.”

Android being a free open source mobile operating system, can be used by any manufacturer for little or no fees. Google generates its revenue by selling ads through the 11 billion app downloads from Android Market. Analysts believe out of the 250 Million Androids activated thus far many of them could be lost cost GPS devices which are not showing ads and hence non-revenue generator for Google.

Source: NYTimes