In a short period of time, Google (GOOG)'s mobile operating platform, Android, which competes with Windows Mobile, Apple (AAPL)'s
iPhone OS, Symbian and Palm OS has garnered plenty of attention and
accolades. As was the case when Apple's App Store was launched some 15
months ago now, Android's Market, which is Google's version of Apple's
App store, has generated a lot of attention. According to mobile
analytics and advertising providers Flurry and AdMob, developers are
devoting significant resources to the mobile platform, which will
result in a boom in Android apps. Flurry, a San Francisco-based mobile
metrics company, reported a 94 percent increase in the number of
projects started by Android developers between September and October.
According to recent reports, over 3 million Android handsets have
been sold so far, and the share of requests AdMob gets for advertising
from Android smartphones sits at 17 percent of all smartphone traffic
as of September. Currently 12 Android phones are available in the
market with more than 75 million Android handsets slated to ship in
2012, according to Gartner Research. Moreover,T-Mobile ( DT
) and Verizon (
VZ) have stepped up their efforts to market a competitor phone to iPhone, which is still exclusively available through AT&T (
T).
Predicted Smartphone Market Share in 2012
The increasing marketshare and presence of Android has created a
unique opportunity for Google. It now has the potential to be front and
center in the hands of everyone who carries a mobile phone. According
to ZD Net, 60% of the world's population now owns a mobile phone. This
equates to over 4 billion active mobile subscriptions worldwide.
