Speaking at a conference in New York on Tuesday organised by the technology blog AllThingsD, Google’s Executive Chairman Eric Schmidt has predicted that that there will be more than a billion smartphones in use featuring its Android software within the next six to nine months, and will be nearing 2 billion in a year or two. This prediction is sweet for those smartphone makers who have ambitious plans for smartphone devices with Android OS, but this will be taken with pinch of salt by Android arch-competitor like Apple and Microsoft.
The five-year old Android software has been a huge hit for Google, giving the Internet search company a strong footing with consumers who increasingly access the Web from mobile phones rather than from PCs. Android is now the world’s No. 1 mobile phone software, with more than 750 million mobile devices featuring Android in use across the world. The huge success of Android OS has benefited leaps and bounds smartphone makers like Samsung,LG,Sony and HTC etc., who have pushed a lot their smartphones running Android OS. The most successful story is of Samsung, which has made its Galaxy range of smartphones a household name.
Eric Schmidt also declared at the same conference that Google had no intention of blocking access to a new app from Facebook Inc, saying he was “phenomenally happy” with the app from Google’s rival, which replaces the home-screen on Android phones. The new Facebook Home app was released recently and gives the social networking service prominent placement on Android phones. Removing Facebook Home from Google’s app store would be counter to Google’s “public statements, our policies, our religion,” Schmidt said at the conference.
Google’s confidence about its Android OS emanate from the fact that many smartphone devices are coming in the market which runs its OS and more and more users are adopting this OS, which is not only user friendly but has almost become an industry standard as far as smartphones are concerned.
