Android is rapidly growing- now boasting 34 total devices from a dozen different OEM partners, the platform is seeing significant growth in all areas.
Speaking during Google’s Q1 earnings call Thursday, VP of engineering Jeff Huber said Google is now selling and activating more than 60,000 new Android devices each day, and that Android Market app growth was up 70% during Q4 2009.
Despite its growth, mobile advertising derived from the Android platform isn’t growing at a similar pace. Smaato recently released stats indicating that Android-based CTR has dropped by 50% during March alone, despite the platform being used on an increasing number of devices.
Still, its growth is on pace to position itself as a premiere smartphone platform, and advertising will surely pick up as well, though Apple’s iAd won’t help things at all.
Google VP of product management Susan Wojicki said mobile advertising is “doing very well,” in an effort to appease investors, saying “we want to make it easy for advertisers to extend their existing campaigns to mobile rather than having to start from scratch. When advertisers run on desktop and mobile we enable them to separate their campaign staff by desktop or mobile to understand their mobile performance. Many of them are surprised by how much mobile activity they have received.” Wojicki also touted the Q1 launch of efforts like Click to Call, which includes phone numbers inside mobile ads. “Not surprisingly this has increased click through, or should I say call through,” she noted.
