Google iOS v Android Income

[BaldiMac]

It's been well publicized that Microsoft makes more money from Android than Windows Phone 7. Has Google made more money from iOS than Android to date? I'm considering the whole ecosystem. Costs and revenues. Standard web advertising, in app advertising, and app sales. If you are using Mobile Safari and use Google to search, any revenue from the search goes in the iOS column. From the acquisition of Android until today. Not annual income.

I think it's pretty likely considering the amount of money they have had to spend on patent acquisitions alone to defend Android.

If you agree, how long until Google has made more money from Android than they have made from iOS?

 

[kdarling]

Interesting question. Well, let's try to figure it out. Not sure we can. Using analysts' data...

------ estimated income:

$880 million a year (and rising) - Google's ad and license fee revenue from Android.

$100 million a year - revenue sharing Google pays Apple for iOS searches. So one question is, what is their revenue sharing percentage? If it's anything under ~11%, then Google makes more from iOS on searches alone. E.g. if it's 10%, then Google is making $1 billion a year from iOS. If only 5%, then Google is making $2 billion a year from iOS.

Either way, Google is making money from both Android and iOS. Nice position to be in.

------ unknown income:

We don't know how much (if anything) Google gets from Apple in exchange for included apps such as Google Maps. Apple might also be paying Google for their YouTube video conversions.

------ patents:

Not sure patents should figure into this, as they have multiple uses and Google got far more than just patents, they got an entire company:

Motorola Mobility is expected to go back into the black soon (they still have over $3 billion in cash reserves as well), so they well might eventually pay back for their own purchase, and then some.

If you agree, how long until Google has made more money from Android than they have made from iOS?

The revenue from Android is predicted to be $1.5 billion next year, but iOS devices are selling like hotcakes too. I'd say that Google will continue to roughly make about equal amounts from both for couple of years, then Android income might pull ahead.

 

[*LTD*]

Not strictly income-related, but this does go to show that Google's services are probably seeing more use on iOS devices than anything else. That speaks to the strength of Apple's ecosystem.

http://judiciary.senate.gov/resources/webcasts/livewebcast.cfm

http://9to5mac.com/2011/09/21/google-23rds-of-our-mobile-search-comes-from-apples-ios/

Google: 2/3rds of our mobile search comes from Apple’s iOS

As part of the Senate Judiciary hearings today, former FTC official (and new Google employee) Susan Creighton, testified under oath today that Google, Microsoft and Yahoo! all bid to become the default search engine on iOS’s Mobile Safari Web Browser. As we know, Google won, and as we can infer, Apple gets some revenue from Google for making it its default search engine. As we know from Apple being Apple, the quality of the search results was probably as big a part of the decision as the relatively small bits of revenue.

But as part of the testimony, Michel said briefly (before she was cut off) that 2/3rds of mobile search comes from Apple iOS devices. That’s pretty interesting considering the share of Android devices in the market. But not altogether surprising considering the web browser market share which includes those millions and millions of iPads.