Responding to a provocative article on TechCrunch that foretold the rise of an Apple monopoly in the smartphone wars, publisher Animoca has issued a riposte, claiming the site's assessment that Android is in decline is way off base.

Animoca points out that daily Android activations are continuing to increase - having passed the 850,000 mark back in February - pointing to a platform enjoying growth rather than suffering a decline.

The growing pie

Indeed, whether you're looking at the stats for the US or overseas, Animoca claims Android is in rude health for an apparently ailing platform.

Kindle Fire is selling strongly, Android dominates iOS in Japan, while estimates suggest Android smartphones outsell their expensive Apple counterpart in China.

What's more, Samsung is the world's largest mobile phone seller, and likely the top smartphone manufacturer too. Apple's revenues may be higher, but Animoca puts this down to "Apple's greater margins and price points."

Frag fail

But while the publisher stands up for Google's platform, Animoca does concede that Android has its issues.

"Chief of which," the company states, "is...fragmentation. On Animoca's network, we counted well over 600 different Android devices used to play our apps.

"You can probably appreciate the difficulty of QA'ing an app for all the different devices: hardware, associated OS tweaks and proprietary integrated software."

Nevertheless, Animoca sees a rosy future for for Google's platform. 

"We believe - especially in the light of Samsung's growing chunk of the pie – that many of these problems will be alleviated as the market consolidates and better compatibility standards are developed and enforced," the firm concludes.

[source: Animoca]