Google: Android shaping up to be a $10 billion a year business

Google is certainly entitled to be bullish regarding Android's fortunes.

While Apple dominates the headlines in the mainstream press, US figures suggest it is Android, not iPhone, that's experienced the most growth in the smartphone sector over the course of 2010.

No doubt aware of such accolades, Google chairman and CEO Eric Schmidt has told the Wall Street Journal that the firm is lining up Android longterm to hit revenues topping $10 billion a year.

PC in your pocket

In his view, its advertising and digital downloads that will fuel this growth as consumers migrate from desktop PCs to smartphones.

"If we have a billion people using Android, you think we can't make money from that?" Schmidt told the paper, adding it would only take a rate of $10 per year per user to hit such a figure.

With 160,000 new Android handsets being activated every day, the opportunities for Google to draw cash from its ever-expanding userbase are rife.

Music to Google's ears

Schmidt himself mentioned the possibility of selling premium digital content from newspapers or other forms of media, while press speculation suggests Google is working on launching a digital music store on the platform dubbed Google Music as early as November.

Already pitched as an iTunes rival, its launch would add another element to the giant's current tussle with Apple. Aside from the standard battle between Android and iPhone, the two parties are already major competitors in the mobile advertising field, with AdMob the largest network on iPhone up until the launch of iAd.

Certainly it's hard to imagine that Google won't push to expand the usability of the platform as its userbase grows.

[source: Wall Street Journal]