Eric Schmidt says Android will close the billion devices mark towards year-end

posted by Daniel P. / Apr 16, 2013, 9:06 AM

Eric Schmidt says Android will close the billion devices mark towards year-end

Eric Schmidt is currently having a fireside chat a the Dive into Mobile conference, and he brought the G1 to stage to show it still works, spitting out some statistics on the incredible Android growth afterwards:

320 operators, 160 countries, 700,000 apps in the Play Store, and 1.5 million Android activations every single day. We'll cross a billion towards the end of this year. That gives you a sense of the reach. Android is the primary vehicle of smartphones - we'll quickly get to the $100 price point, which is the key for those next five billion people looking to get connected...

Our goal is to reach everybody. Today, Samsung is the number one vendor in terms of unit volume. Because of tech trends, these devices today will be significantly cheaper in two years. As long as memory requirements don't massively increase, these devices will trickle down.

In the developing world, we're getting products launched with pre-loaded content in native languages. In our own world, we talk about the explosion of bandwidth, but that's greater than the developing world. In that world, just going from no bandwidth to any bandwidth -- that's huge.

Humans are naturally optimistic and clever. If the police are corrupt, people will figure out a way to see what the cops are up to -- we see this in Mexico. With mobile devices, we're empowering individuals. For the overwhelming number of people in the world, it's a huge improvement.

No one uses a phone by themselves any longer. Most people aren't even making calls. One model going forward, companies like Google evolve to be your helper. They make suggestions. They assist you...

Google has a responsibility to keep your data secure. You have a responsibility to keep your password secure and not install malware. With respect to your personal information, we allow you to take it out. The other thing is that we're careful about when we use your information and we tell you that. We disclose what we do with your information, and we adhere to published principles. We have an absolute responsibility to keep your data secure.

Check out the ongoing interview from the source link below.

source: AllThingsD (livestream)

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15 Comments

1. xperiaDROID

Posts: 5629; Member since: Mar 08, 2013

Wow! Android is getting bigger! I love you Android! By the way, wish all the best to Windows Phone and BlackBerry, keep the apps and games coming! :)

posted on Apr 16, 2013, 9:25 AM 9

12. omar300

Posts: 210; Member since: Jun 24, 2012

i dont know about blackberry but windows is defiantly a great platform. it can be called androids step brother. i hope android brings live tiles sort of thing soon. i like how person can see messages missed calls without opening an app through live tiles, but my complain is that they dont have a good music player. and because its closed system no one can make one. THATS WHY ANDROID IS BEST! :D

posted on Apr 16, 2013, 1:35 PM 1

15. xperiaDROID

Hey me too, that's what I thought! I also hope that Android brings live tiles soon! But, we also can say that Windows Phone and BlackBerry is Android's stepbrothers! :)

posted on Apr 16, 2013, 10:08 PM 0

2. maier9900

Posts: 272; Member since: Dec 17, 2011

Im glad iOS is not open source. It would bring in all the malware possible, just like android currently does. Sad. Oooh, and if iOS was open source for all the manufacturers (like android is) it would've reached 2 billion devices long ago.

posted on Apr 16, 2013, 9:36 AM 4

9. taikucing unregistered

that's why Mac OS X got virus last year asked for kaspersky's help. Kaspersky also said that mac security is 10 years behind microsoft. Google this: "Apple Strips Mac OS X Website of Virus Statements" or "Mac security is 10 years behind Microsoft". I wonder why Linux has the biggest market share in servers & supercomputers, not only because it's free, powerful, more stable, but also its security is though. Yeah dude, open source is not bad. People can contribute for the better OS. The browser I'm using now is open source (firefox). It's better, faster, safer, more features than IE & safari. I can't Ctrl + Enter in safari, it sucks.

posted on Apr 16, 2013, 10:21 AM 1

10. zekes

Posts: 230; Member since: Aug 14, 2012

ur dumb as hell lmao i got 3 macs and 1 being very old never got a virus running OS tiger its years ahead Microsoft in the pc field win 8 has how many virus over 10000 and that's being nice come on dude u hate apple y r u mad at them

posted on Apr 16, 2013, 11:15 AM 1

13. WHoyton1

Posts: 1635; Member since: Feb 21, 2013

2 billion devices!!... Mate your a joke...yes because a third of the world's population would have a iPhone or ipad.... Get real mate and stop being a pointless isheep

posted on Apr 16, 2013, 4:39 PM 1

3. pokharkarsaga

Posts: 547; Member since: Feb 23, 2012

Android is Unstoppable

posted on Apr 16, 2013, 9:42 AM 7

4. addicted2088

Posts: 57; Member since: Sep 25, 2012

"As long as memory requirements don't massively increase, these devices will trickle down." Considering both ICS and JB increased RAM usage, which was already quite high thanks to the Java core, I can see RAM requirements increasing even more, making low-end devices a poor experience. Compare that to OS like Symbian and MeeGo where RAM usage was low and multitasking was awesome, and I wish Google finds a way to reduce RAM usage and increase performance. :/

posted on Apr 16, 2013, 9:49 AM 4

6. taikucing unregistered

I think that's caused by too much bloatwares that occupy the memory, or the apps are heavily skinned. Uninstall the bloatwares or install the custom ROM which takes less memory. The qwerty BB OS7 has 512 MB RAM, sometime BB freezes, takes long time to boot. As a comparison, my phone with 512 MB RAM & JB still runs fine, still has 200 MB free memory, no lag problem. BB Z10 takes a lot of memory too IMO, that's why it has 2 GB RAM

posted on Apr 16, 2013, 10:02 AM 0

7. addicted2088

I have a Nexus device so there isn't any bloatware installed. It's a fact that stuff takes more RAM on Android (especially when enabled with hardware acceleration, Google points that out). And the main reason is the use of Java. I'd like to point out that I'm not talking about how much RAM my system is taking at any point, rather how much an app takes compared to other OS versions. And it's quite a lot (the settings app itself takes 40MB, that's too much).

posted on Apr 16, 2013, 10:14 AM 0

8. addicted2088

Oh, and as for your OS running quite well on 512MB, it's because while I curse the high RAM usage, Android's system of clearing out memory when needed, caching etc makes it otherwise a good system. It's just that at any moment the number of apps that are actively paused in the background and can be resumed is low due to high RAM usage, before Android starts killing them. Blackberry (and Symbian too) had no setting for closing older apps as new ones were opened, so meeting freezes and lags were much more common.

posted on Apr 16, 2013, 10:18 AM 0

11. Aeires unregistered

I think the point he was trying to make was people in those parts of the world aren't likely to be buying high end games and whatnot. What they will be primarily doing is using their phones for calls, texts, and other ways to communicate, which shouldn't take that much memory use.

posted on Apr 16, 2013, 11:58 AM 0

5. porter_

Posts: 8; Member since: Apr 15, 2013

He was referring to one billion Android activations, not one billion Android apps. Edit - Ah, headline changed now

posted on Apr 16, 2013, 9:57 AM 0

14. Edmund

Posts: 656; Member since: Jul 13, 2012

I'm one of those billion, yet haven't used android (actively) in over 2 years. Schmidt is dreaming if he thinks affordable handsets like the Lumia 520, 620, and 720 won't have an impact on sales of mid-range android models.