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Comment by nirvana | Hacker News Reader

Its interesting that this number, 400k per day, is significantly less than the 700k per day that Google has recently claimed to be activating.

Yet at the same time, the iPhone is %55 of Verizon's sales, and the iPhone is not the only iOS device, with the iPod touch doing pretty well (7M last quarter) and the iPad having essentially no competition and growing around %100 a year.

To me, this implies that a very large number of the android phones being activated each day are outside the USA, and I suspect to people who otherwise would have bought a feature phone. It looks like the difference in distribution (android's distribution is much broader since it has more hardware partners who have more longstanding agreements with more carriers) is the key to the difference in activation numbers.

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I believe, besides the great success that Apple has with its mobile devices, the most interesting here are the enormous sums the mobile carriers are spending to subsidize this growth - up to US$300 per device.

This is certainly not something they can sustain much longer at these levels and also cross-sponsoring Apple devices by all their other phones (mostly Android) will not stretch this much further.

I guess we've just seen the peak of that where both Apple & the mobile operators had underestimated demand.

The most likely outcome of that will be that the mobile operators might start selling new Apple devices at their true cost - i.e. those will become substantially more expensive for the consumers with a market saturation happening / having already happened at the same time - or in other words - less phones with similar income for Apple but consumers not buying a new Apple phone every year.

The average contract revenue for an iPhone user is around $2,000 ($100x24 months, give or take).

The average subsidy for iPhones is more like $450 per phone (thus the Apple unlocked price of $600+ for unsubsidized phones).

15% of contract value to subsidize the hardware doesn't seem that bad. I wonder how much cable companies pay for set-top boxes, Vonage with free VOIP adapters, etc.

Activations would still be disimilar to sales because Apple profits both from the sale of the hardware, but if I remember correctly, they also are cut part of the recurring contract revenue (please correct me if I'm wrong).

I'm not sure how Google ends up making their money off Android (other than it allowing them a much-need and very good-sized footprint in the mobile market). While they might get some cut of the phone contract, they don't get the profit from the hardware side, which like most Apple devices is very profitable.

There seems to be a higher ratio of Android to Apple phones in non English speaking countries. I wonder if it is largely the Apple marketing machine not so geared up. I think the smartphone upgrade is pretty universal in richer countries.

I bet it's the cost factor. I know tons of people in the developing world that don't always have electricity, but they have smart phones.

In continental Europe, Samsung Galaxy and other Android phones are not only more popular than Apple but are increasing in popularity.

I think its a combination of Apple's control over carriers including distribution and marketing, cost, range of phones and cannibalization of Nokia's share by Android, in that order.

Also, everyone has moved to smartphones. For many they just want to upgrade an existing phone. Even parents when they buy phones for their kids would buy smartphones and these will inevitably be Android on mainly cost and choice.

It's also worth noting the high rates of returns for Android devices versus iOS devices. Activations don't really take this into account whereas net sales probably does.

I haven't seen any numbers on Android/iPhone returns. I can understand that counting activations might inflate the numbers but is the return rate so high as to make a real difference?

It's just speculation but here's some sources http://androidcommunity.com/android-return-rate-30-40-on-som... & http://seekingalpha.com/article/312394-kindle-fire-returns-c...

Sales numbers by Apple are hard, cold, verifyable numbers.

"Activations" is still a term that has no clear definition. Google has hinted at what they are (and are not), but even their meaning to Google in terms of the bottom-line are unclear.

Android is no doubt a phenomenon that is sweeping the mobile world... how does Google profit or succeed from this?

> Android is no doubt a phenomenon that is sweeping the mobile world... how does Google profit or succeed from this?

I suppose Google's goal with Android is to maintain those numbers up http://gs.statcounter.com/#mobile_search_engine-ww-monthly-2...

From my understanding Apples sale numbers are sales to stores, not to customers. So they are hard, cold, verifyable numbers of what are sold to storefronts and not necessarily to people who are using the phone.

Feel free to correct me if I'm wrong.

So would that make Android the Orkut of smartphone operating systems?

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