More than 700,000 people sign up for a new Android device every day, Google’s Android chief, Andy Rubin said via twitter and facebook. That works out to nearly 5 million new Android users every week, which is about the equivalent of an iPhone 4S opening weekend every seven days. Google’s 700,000 activations per day includes new devices only and not resold ones.
“We count each device only once,” Rubin said in a follow-up post on Google+. “Activations means you go into a store, buy a device, [and] put it on the network by subscribing to a wireless service.”
[advt]Rubin’s clarification may have been in response to past criticisms lobbed against Android by Apple’s late cofounder Steve Jobs. “We think some of our friends are counting upgrades in their numbers,” Jobs said, referring to Android in September 2010.
Earlier in December, Google’s executive chairman, Eric Schmidt, said there were about 550,000 Android phones being activated every day. But it appears Schmidt was specifically taking about phones, while Rubin only mentioned “devices” suggesting he may be counting phones as well as 3G-enabled tablets. Rubin in June said there were 500,000 Android activations every day.
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