Google's Android Doesn't Generate Much Revenue for Google: Maybe it Isn't Supposed To

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.