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Comment by repnation | Hacker News Reader

Last 12M ending 9/30/2015 (last available financial data): Google did $71.7Bn in revenue and $14.7Bn in net income. I assume the lawyer meant that Android had generated $31Bn since inception, but that can't mean gross revenue since they only take a 15% cut on the Play store (so wouldn't be able to show $22Bn of profit (71% margin). So $31Bn in net revenue implies $207Bn in gross revenues. The Apple App Store did $20Bn in 2015 and generated 75% more revenue than Google (http://blog.appannie.com/app-annie-2015-retrospective/), implying $11Bn in gross revenue for Google Play, or $1.7Bn in net revenue in 2015.

tl;dr: Oracle lawyers are full of shit

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You're not counting the license fees for the Android OS. Only Android AOSP is free, and nobody outside of China ships that. Android including the Play Store and all the Google apps costs real money, I've heard estimates of about $10 per phone. Android ships about 1 billion phones a year, so $31B lifetime revenue sounds about right.

I've never heard of this before, and previous leaks of the contracts between Google and OEMs[1] made no mention of this. I doubt OEMs would agree to those terms. As far as I know, the license only covers things like hardware and software requirements, apps you have to include (Google Play, Gmail, etc.), etc.

[1]: http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2014/02/new-android-oem-licen...

Techically the money OEMs have to pay covering certification does not go to Google.

You may be right that most vendors don't agree to it. But the larger ones that are on the western markets definitely do.

http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2014/jan/23/how-google...

> Techically the money OEMS have to pay covering certification does not go to Google.

OP was referring to license fees, which google does not charge. Mandatory certification by a third party is different from that, and judging by the numbers in that article amount to less than a dollar per device (probably far less for flagship devices that sell millions of units?).

> You may be right that most OEMs don't agree to it. But the larger ones that are on the western markets definitely do.

No OEM agreed to licensing fees, they don't exist (as far as is publicly known).

Do you mean the $10/phone that Android OEMs have to pay Microsoft for licensing?

Google doesn't charge for access to the play store. They do require compatibility certification which other non-Google companies charge for this. http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2014/jan/23/how-google...

I've heard a different number: 75 ¢ per device, which goes to "partners".

Not necessarily. Android is one of Google's primary vehicles to deliver mobile ads. Those have fabulously fat profit margins.

Probably not after tac, though I guess it depends on what you call fat margins. Rumors are google pays apple 75% for their search deal. My suspicion is google keep under 30% of mobile ad spend too.

What? Google pays Apple $0 for ads on Android.

> google pays apple 75% for their search deal

"rumors are" == "not true"

Why did you think this was a relevant comment to reply to me with?

Right.

But we can reasonably expect they pay something (cite: the Mozilla deal = $300M in 2013) and iOS is worth a lot more than that.

Given the economics and the relationship between Apple and Google it doesn't seem an impossible number.

It would be great if you could provide a better number rather than that somewhat critical comment.

Yes, on iOS. This is all about Android revenue. Google pays Apple $0 for Android advertising.

my point (re: fat margins on mobile advertising) was that anyone who can control the default search engine stands to take a big piece of the profit associated with google ads delivered via those searches

http://searchengineland.com/report-75-percent-of-googles-mob...

Exactly right, even if Oracle is including mobile ads the margins make no sense

They take a 30% cut, not 15%.

repnation probably meant that of the 30% they keep half (which I think I've heard before). That doesn't seem to be accurate though; apparently in 2014 the WSJ reported (paywalled) they switched to keeping most of it; see (in lieu of a primary reference; I can't be bothered searching further):

http://www.beyonddevic.es/2014/06/25/what-we-learned-about-g...

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