Android activations exceed 700k per day

A few hours ago, Android’s Andy Rubin rocked the blogosphere with the announcement that more than seven hundred thousand Android devices are activated each day, up from the previous paltry daily count of 550,000, reported in late July. Well, ‘paltry’ might be a slight misnomer, but 700k+ is one heck of a jump from there. This latest information effectively scotches the speculation that Android's growth had peaked, and opens up the probability that one million activations a day will be announced within weeks.


Rubin also took the opportunity in a tweet to put the anti-Android brigade in their place with the confirmation that Google’s activation measurement is based on unique first-time connections, and doesn't include any refurbishment repeat activation, or OS upgrades as earlier claimed by Apple’s Steve Jobs and continually repeated by the Cupertino iGadget maker's supporters since.


This new figure is a revealing insight into how popular the Android platform has become relative to its closest competitor, Apple’s iOS, which was last reported as being activated at ~230,000 per day in September 2010. Since Android’s stunning growth saw it pass the iOS activation rate, somewhat tellingly Apple has stopped publishing its own activation information.


In the US, where Apple traditionally enjoys a ‘home ground’ advantage in market share, iOS share is roughly half that of Android, and in Australasia, where iOS has enjoyed a serious dominance in the past, Android is now the leading platform by a small margin. The trend though, is for Android ascendency in this region much as it is globally.


Source: Twitter, Google+