Android: Not Currently a Money Maker For Google

[engine]

There's quite an interesting assessment of Google's Andoid OS which is worth reading.

Hanging over these concerns is the question of the bottom line. Despite surging sales, profits in the Android smartphone business declined 44 percent in 2014, according to the independent analyst Chetan Sharma. Over the holidays last year, according to the research firm Strategy Analytics, Apple vacuumed up nearly 90 percent of the profits in the smartphone business. The stark numbers prompted a troubling question for Android and for Google: How will the search company — or anyone else, for that matter — ever make much money from Android? Android: Not Currently a Money Maker For Google [nytimes.com]

[MrSavage]

Comical. If Android was a revenue generator, think about it. Ammo for regulators. It's like offering a free dinner or free tablet if you sit through my time share presentation. It's not about the free dinner or tablet. Obviously. Isn't it?

[Leosghost]

They appear to be forgetting the playstore and the data slurping / tracking that android gives G <= the latter worth billions..

[engine]

Play store is mentioned in the article as being the opportunity for revenue.

Android has done well because, in part, because it's pretty good, it's customisable, and, importantly, it's as good as free.

What's a surprise is that so few major businesses have taken the open source version and customised it themselves. Perhaps because they want the easy answer.

Either way, Google is winning, or should we say, has won for the time being.

[MrSavage]

@engine, you do realize that if it's tweaked, you can tweak yourself right out of Google Play access?

[engine]

Oh yes, MrSavage, and that's why I said they want the easy answer.
Look at Samsung, with all its massive smartphone sales, they could have really made a dent, but, no, they didn't.

[RedBar]

you do realize that if it's tweaked, you can tweak yourself right out of Google Play access?

Just so that there's nothing lost in translation from US English to UK English, what do you mean?