Google CEO Eric Schmidt has today revealed that Google is now activating more than 200,000 Android devices each day, an increase of more than 40,000 since June.
Android, Google"s mobile operating system -- which competes with Apple"s iOS, Research in Motion"s Blackberry software and Microsoft"s Windows Mobile system -- has seen exponential growth this year, with around 100,000 Android devices being activated each day in May, before a month later reaching more than 160,000.
And Google CEO Eric Schmidt today revealed at the first-ever Techonomy conference in Lake Tahoe, California, that the company now believes more than 200,000 devices running Android are being sold each day.
"It looks like Android is not just phenomenal but incredibly phenomenal in its growth rate. God knows how long that will continue," he said.
Schmidt also revealed the search giant is making enough money from search revenue by users using the open source Android (which hardware manufacturers can obtain for free) to make it worthwhile for Google to continue pursuing it.
“Trust me, that revenue is large enough to pay for all of the Android activities and a whole bunch more," Schmidt told journalists (see video below) in a meeting after his appearance on the panel.
"I should also say that we love the success of the iPhone because the iPhone also uses Google"s search and we get a chunk of that revenue when people search on the iPhone."
Adding to the excitement around Android was the news that phones running Google"s operating system are now outselling the Apple"s iPhone for the first time -- although these figures didn"t include the newly released iPhone 4 figures.