Google may be winning market share with their Android mobile operating system, but Apple and Microsoft could make more from Android than Google. Possibly up to 600% more in 2013!
Venture Beat, via MacDailyNews:
This past weekend Apple and HTC signed a patent cross-licensing deal that, according to one analyst, could see Apple collect between $6 and $8 for each and every Android smartphone HTC sells. And Microsoft, which has been working on licensing its patents to Android manufacturers for a number of years and has licensing deals with LG, Acer, Samsung, and many other companies, collects as much as $5 per device.
Google has never publicly broken down its Android revenue, but it has been calculated by Asymco earlier this year — based on information Google was forced to reveal by court filings — that it is as low as $1.70 per Android device, per year. Less than a sixth of the combined $12 Microsoft and Apple could be making for each Android smartphone sold.
Big assumptions of course, as the calculations depend on Microsoft collecting royalties from all Android manufacturers, and on Apple duplicating its HTC licensing deal with other Android phone companies.
Google isn’t exactly hurting for revenue from the mobile side of things. Google has been reported to make three times as much on iOS phones and tablets as it has on its own Android based devices, although those figures are sure to take a hit with the release of iOS 6 sans Google Maps. However, mobile ad revenues are reported to be rising across the board, and the amount it makes on the Android devices does recur every single year.
