Thursday, July 14, 2011, 10:00 pm

Google posts record $9B in revenue as daily Android activations grow to 550K

By Josh Ong

During an earnings call on Thursday, Google reported record quarterly revenue of more than $9 billion and reached a new milestone of 550,000 Android device activations per day, up from the 500,000 a day it disclosed in June.

Google CEO Larry Page posted his opening remarks for the company's second quarter earnings call on his Google+ page, noting that revenue increased 32 percent to $9 billion, setting a quarterly record.

The Mountain View, Calif., company also revealed that Android device activations have reached a daily figure of 550,000, with a total of 135 million devices activated. That's up from 500,000 per day in late June, remaining in line with the 4.4 percent weekly growth that Android chief Andy Rubin disclosed over Twitter.

By comparison, as of June, Apple had sold a total of 200 million iOS devices. Last October, CEO Steve Jobs said the company had reached daily iOS activations of 275,000. However, the company has declined to continue updating the metric, even as activations on Google Android have continued to climb.


In terms of smartphones, the Android platform surpassed the iPhone last year and has continued to widen its lead over its rival. According to comScore, Google held 38.1 percent of the smartphone market in the U.S. last quarter, compared to Apple's 26.6 percent.

Apple, however, still maintains the lead in terms of app downloads. Google said on Thursday that total Android app downloads had reached 6 billion, whereas Apple recently reached the 15 billion download mark.

Shares of Google jumped up over 12 percent in after hours trading in light of the company's favorable earnings report, overcoming a loss of 1.73 percent during the day on Thursday.

Investor reaction was markedly different from the response to the search giant's earnings results in the first quarter of calendar 2011. After Page was conspicuously absent on his first earnings call as CEO and operating expenses leapt up, Google shares tumbled 17 percent from April to June, before bottoming out at $474.88. In April, Page took over for Eric Schmidt as the company's CEO.

For its part, Apple will release its own quarterly results on Tuesday, July 19 after the market close. AppleInsider will have full in-depth coverage.