How about announcing the next version of your successful mobile platform when you hit the 1 billion users mark? That’s exactly what Google did today. It announced that Android has now been activated on a total of 1 billion devices.
1 billion is such a milestone. The 1 billion users announcement is coming hot on the heels of news back in July that the Play store had crossed the 1 billion mark in terms of the number of apps available on the premier Android app marketplace. The Play Store also has served up over 50 billion apps to the huge Android user base. That is even when you factor in that there is a good number of Android-based devices that have no access to the Google Play Store.
Devices like Amazon’s Kindles and most of the smartphones and tablets retailing in countries like China have other OEM or carrier operated app stores and don’t access the universal Play Store. For a country like China with the world’s largest population and where device maker Xiaomi has had its own app store clock the 1 billion apps downloaded mark recently (in just 391 days!), it tells you so much about the potential that Android harbours.
On a day that we saw the end of the road for Nokia Devices and Services and the official disclosure of the next android version, it is good to know that the momentum that Android gathered in 2008 has has not been lost. There’s still some work to do though.
By the way the latest figures show that Android retains a firm grip as the leader as far as mobile platforms go. How long till we see the next billion Android users sign up?
