The number of Android devices Google is activating each day has grown 500 percent since January, when the company reported 60,000 activations per day. In a tweet late Wednesday, Google Vice President of Engineering Andy Rubin said “over 300,000 Android phones” are being activated each day on average.
In September, Apple CEO Steve Jobs sought to downplay Google’s August report of 200,000 daily Android activations by announcing that Apple was then “activating a little over 230,000 iOS devices per day — and that’s new activations.” He added, “We think some of our friends are counting upgrades in their numbers. If we counted upgrades in our numbers, they would be way higher than 230,000.”
In response, Google told media outlets that it only counts the number of Android devices that become activated for Google services each day. As a result, the company said, the figures it reports only represent a portion of the total number of new Android-based devices entering the global marketplace on a daily basis.
The iPad Factor
Google’s latest Android activation count is primarily for smartphones, whereas Apple figures always include a significant number of non-smartphone devices such as the iPad and the iPod touch. Based on Apple’s report of 4.19 million iPads sold in the company’s latest business quarter, for example, the iPad alone could account for as many as 46,000 iOS activations per day.
The iPad and iPod touch “contribute to the strength of Apple’s ecosystem and the iPhone in a way that smartphone-only manufacturers cannot compete with,” noted Gartner Research Vice President Carolina Milanesi. “While Android is increasingly available on media tablets and media players like the Galaxy (Tab), it lags far behind iOS’s multi-device presence.”
On the other hand, Apple’s daily numbers have also risen since September. According to a November Gartner report, Apple by then had boosted…