Multi-product firms tend to sell products with varying profit margins, and different gross revenue contributions. Google doesn't appear to be any different. Most of Google's revenue is generated from advertising, and some from software licenses.
It appears the open-source Android effort has generated less than $550 million in revenues for Google between 2008 and the end of 2011.
The figures also suggest that Apple devices such as the iPhone, which use products such as its Maps as well as Google Search in its Safari browser, generated more than four times as much revenue for Google as its own handsets in the same period.
If correct, those figures would not be terribly surprising. The whole point of Android was to create a widespread mobile ecosystem that is the foundation for the actual revenue-generating activities, not a terribly important revenue creator in its own right.
Friday, March 30, 2012
Google's Android Doesn't Generate Much Revenue for Google: Maybe it Isn't Supposed To
Gary Kim has been a digital infra analyst and journalist for more than 30 years, covering the business impact of technology, pre- and post-internet. He sees a similar evolution coming with AI. General-purpose technologies do not come along very often, but when they do, they change life, economies and industries.
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