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Google's Android Generates $31B Revenue, Oracle Says
- colinbartlett 11y agoMaybe I just don't understand the nature of financial data, but what makes this so sensitive? What could someone do knowing this number that could have such a dramatic effect on Google's business?
- gohrt 11y agoKnowing this sort of information gives competitors strategic insights into how to structure and scale a competing business. For example, do you want to build a great camera phone? How much money and people should you invest, and is it possible to recoup that investment? Here are some hints that you'd find very valuable: * http://www.theverge.com/2015/12/20/10631330/iphone-camera-team-800-people http://www.theverge.com/2015/12/20/10631330/iphone-camera-te... * the OP of this thread
- freyr 11y agoIn addition to its competitors, it may also provide Google's partners with more leverage during negotiations.
- ocdtrekkie 11y agoGoogle heavily relies on a perception that Android is practically a charity for the good of the world, wholly open source, etc. The reality that it's a walled garden ecosystem that makes bank isn't really good for them. And a lot of OEMs have reason to ask why they're expected to pay the burden of liability and work on software updates and security patches when Google's raking in most of the profits.
- victorhooi 11y agoYeah....haha.... Developing a mobile OS isn't cheap. The only viable competitor to Android at the moment seems to be iOS. You could go ask Apple how much money they've ploughed into iOS development. It's probably more money than either you or I have seen in our lives before. Look at what happens when hardware manufacturers try to develop their own OS - e.g. Samsung's https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bada https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bada Or even when they try to create basic skins.... The fact of the matter is, they (OEMs) are getting something they historically haven't been able to get right - and if they don't like it, they are free to fork it. E.g. look at Amazon, and their Fire range. (The problem being that now they've forked, they don't get upstream updates, and have to take on the maintenance burden themselves....) So I have very little sympathy for them - they're getting a pretty good deal. The alternative would be everybody using iPhones or Blackberries...haha. This is just my take on it, of course =).
- ocdtrekkie 11y agoThe reason Android is the only viable competitor is because they're an illegal monopoly, and they're under investigation for it in several countries. Hardware manufacturers would be better off with their own platform than forking Android. Because Android's built that way. Between proprietary APIs apps are built on, and Google having a chokehold over the primary distribution channel for apps, forking leaves a manufacturer with almost nothing to go on. The only thing they gain is a loss: They don't control the development direction of the platform. Meanwhile, OEMs have to bear the cost of deploying software updates, even if they're to fix Google's security mistakes. When Stagefright went out, any of the few devices that got patched, that cost the OEMs money. Why isn't Google paying the burden of all of that development and deployment? It's their screw up! OEMs signed a deal with the devil on Android, and now they're in a situation where they have no way to escape. Dropping Android means financial ruin, but sticking with it means they can't do anything without Google's approval.
- chetanahuja 11y ago"The reason Android is the only viable competitor is because they're an illegal monopoly" Please elaborate. How's google's Android business a A) monopoly B) illegal?
- bitmapbrother 11y agoYou must be referring to the antitrust charges that companies like Microsoft and their allies petitioned the EU to look into. I would also love to see hardware manufactures use their own platform because it would make them realize how incompetent they are at writing software and creating ecosystems. It would also eliminate them from the market as no one would buy a phone with such poor quality software and the lack of app availability. As for OEM's having to bear the cost of deploying software updates, well, if these OEM's weren't so insistent of rolling their own Android OS, complete with their nasty UI changes, (in an effort to trick their customers that they actually created the OS from scratch) and simply shipped Google's version then the cost of deploying the updates would be much less. Additionally, I don't get why you think Google is on the hook for an OEM's OS. They created the OS by customizing it so they're responsible for it. But, let's face reality, these OEM's would prefer shipping a brand new phone rather than issuing updates because it's in their nature to make as much money off of their hardware and OS updates just prolong their support and detract from future sales.
- azurezyq 11y agoI'm curious should lawyers have financial or other types of liabilities of intentionally / unintentionally disclosures like this?
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- fataliss 11y agoI think it's the wrong language to say that Android generates revenue, as really it's ads and app store that do. Android just enables those activities. It's like saying that iOS generates revenue. It doesn't. It would if it was commercially licensed software, but Android OS isn't as far as I know. Maybe I'm just being persnickety.
- yeukhon 11y agoI bet apps and any electronics ship with Android are the one making the money. In fact, I think the hardware piece is the one making money.
- victorhooi 11y agoDo you have any evidence for this claim? Or is this just conjecture on your part? Last time I checked, most Android hardware manufacturers - including Samsung (although that may be for other reasons) - were bleeding money. HTC's financial trouble are well known, Sony's Android division isn't profitable either. Can you think of a single Android manufacturer that is raking it in? Google also doesn't make the phones directly - other manufacturers like LG do. Can you think of any reason they would be making more money? Keep in mind that Nexus phones don't sell anywhere near the same quantity as widely advertised phones, like say, the Samsung Galaxy range. Also, the apps that ship on Android are free...
- ocean3 11y agoCan you think of a single Android manufacturer that is raking it in? - Micromax has profits and its revenue and percentage are rising in India.
- duaneb 11y ago...or that linux generates all of Google's revenue.
- badestrand 11y agoSo Facebook generates no revenue as well since it's just their ads that do? In both cases the platform (Android/Facebook) is the vehicle, whose sole purpose is to generate revenue, so I think it is safe to say that that vehicle is directly responsible for the revenue.
- IBM 11y agoThis is amazingly low considering that they have 80% of global market share of an incredibly large and fast growing product that almost everyone in the world will own.
- meric 11y agoOnly a little bit less than coca cola at $46b, they have very high global market share of a product bought by billions, that almost everyone over 10 have purchased dozens of times.
- xiaoma 11y agoApples mobile revenue lead has accelerated further ahead of Google's this past year according to App Annie's newest report. http://photos.appleinsidercdn.com/gallery/15636-12047-Screen-Shot-2016-01-20-at-24101-PM-l.jpg http://photos.appleinsidercdn.com/gallery/15636-12047-Screen...
- mwfunk 11y agoSamsung (and Google, to a much lesser degree) are the only companies that make any profit on Android. Everyone else loses money on it, even if they have billions in revenue. "Lose money on every sale, but make it up in volume" isn't a viable business strategy, but that's where a lot of companies are at right now.
- daveguy 11y agoYou have to pay Oracle to develop Java apps? That is news to me. I thought the idea was to offer the JDK for free to spur adoption. Is that only the JRE? Does the same "no-commerce without paying Oracle" apply to JavaScript or Node.js?
- enjo 11y agoThe case is more complex. Oracle is claiming that Google violated their copyright by cloning Java API's for the Android development kit. They didn't use the code from the Oracle API's, but rather provided the same interfaces only. Oracle won and now they're going to try to bleed Google dry on the Android front.
- kenshaw 11y agoI wouldn't say that Oracle won, as I don't believe Google has given up nor do I believe they have exhausted the legal tactics/maneuvers available to them. I fully believe this case will end up in front of the supreme court, as fundamentally this is a 1st amendment issue: do you have the right to say what other people are saying? (that's effectively what re-implementing APIs is). I believe the 1st amendment provides for this. My hope is that Google does not settle the case with Oracle, as I'm sure this case shows up at the top of their legal budget.
- lftl 11y agoDidn't the Supreme Court already turn down the case? Or is there some other avenue of appeal that's yet to be decided?
- carussell 11y agoThe Supreme Court turned down the opportunity to hear Google's arguments that APIs are not protectable by copyright. Turns out, they are, according to the Supreme Court's implicit affirmation of the Federal Circuit's decision. But "copyright protection can extend to APIs" is all that the courts' decisions amount to so far. As the article says, the case has been remanded back to the district court, which will be trying to answer the question, "Given that APIs are not inherently unprotected, are Google's actions in this case punishable, or did they amount to fair use?" Here's how that's gonna go: Allsup is almost definitely going to find it fair use, and (with a little less certainty) the Federal Circuit is going to reverse that decision when Oracle appeals it. At that point, we're back to waiting to see if the Supreme Court will hear Google's arguments, but this time their argument will be that, APIs being unprotected or not, their actions were essentially no different than the ones the Supreme Court determined were defensible in Lexmark v. Static Control in pursuit of interoperability. First Amendment probably won't actually factor in to this. This is assuming that neither Oracle nor Google capitulates before it makes it that far. Oracle probably won't. Google might.
- jorgecurio 11y agoLarry Ellison is a joke. Oracle is slowly fading into mediocrity. He thought ERP was just a bunch of tables and UI that corporate america would be suckered into paying millions of dollars for.
- ryanmarsh 11y agoThey were and they did, now the guy races 72' catamarans around SF Bay for fun. I'd say his bet worked out just fine for him.
- jsprogrammer 11y agoAnd someone won $1.5 billion on lotto numbers...
- ryanmarsh 11y ago"If it's stupid but it works, it isn't stupid" - Murphy's Laws of War
- jorgecurio 11y agoOh yes. And he did it very well but by no means is Oracle a shining beacon for innovation. but I'm more along the lines of: What the fuck did Oracle do for the rest of us vs. Google? I mean now he's just trying to make a last money grab from Google. I'm a google fanboy so there it is.
- suyash 11y agoHe is one of the wealthiest and successful entrepreneur in the world. I wonder what your net worth and success looks like if any.
- repnation 11y agoLast 12M ending 9/30/2015 (last available financial data): Google did $71.7Bn in revenue and $14.7Bn in net income. I assume the lawyer meant that Android had generated $31Bn since inception, but that can't mean gross revenue since they only take a 15% cut on the Play store (so wouldn't be able to show $22Bn of profit (71% margin). So $31Bn in net revenue implies $207Bn in gross revenues. The Apple App Store did $20Bn in 2015 and generated 75% more revenue than Google (http://blog.appannie.com/app-annie-2015-retrospective/ http://blog.appannie.com/app-annie-2015-retrospective/), implying $11Bn in gross revenue for Google Play, or $1.7Bn in net revenue in 2015. tl;dr: Oracle lawyers are full of shit
- melted 11y agoNot necessarily. Android is one of Google's primary vehicles to deliver mobile ads. Those have fabulously fat profit margins.
- x0x0 11y agoProbably not after tac, though I guess it depends on what you call fat margins. Rumors are google pays apple 75% for their search deal. My suspicion is google keep under 30% of mobile ad spend too.
- jonknee 11y agoWhat? Google pays Apple $0 for ads on Android.
- carussell 11y ago> google pays apple 75% for their search deal
- passwordreset 11y ago"rumors are" == "not true"
- wh-uws 11y agoAnd it all could have been avoided with a measly (for Google) 4 billion dollar Sun acquisition on Google's part years ago. I honestly still dont understand why they didn't. I ask this question with zero snark intended. Can someone please give me a good answer why Google didnt buy Sun?
- jaytaylor 11y agoHindsight is 20/20. Naturally if they'd known the future they might have made different moves.
- tadfisher 11y agoI believe Google has yet to spend 4 billion dollars in this litigation matter, so they're still ahead regardless?
- spinchange 11y agoI don't think it was nearly as clear back then that this is how things would play out. Sun still controlled its own destiny when Android was nascent and it's my understanding that while Sun wasn't exactly thrilled about them building on Apache Harmony / Dalvik, etc., they weren't going to sue them over it either. Motorola on the other hand was literally telling Google and Wall Street that they were ready to go nuclear on other Android ODMs if someone didn't make them an offer (because their actual operating business wasn't cutting it anymore)
- beedogs 11y agoOracle really is a slimy, terrible company, though.
- spinchange 11y agoI don't have any special insight or knowledge, but there's absolutely no way Oracle's numbers are right. It is in their interest to exaggerate and take the most ridiculously optimistic estimate. In actual fact, I bet Google (again just my rank speculation) probably sees Android as a loss leader. Doesn't Microsoft make more per device on Android than Google through IP licensing shakedown settlements? I know Android enables a lot of things, but does Google really earn much (or any) revenue from it directly?
- aaronkrolik 11y agohas anyone been able to recover the now removed document?
- johansch 11y agoThe popularity of Android is roughly inversely correlated to the average income of each country in question. They tend to live in countries like Indonesia, Nigeria, rather than e.g. USA, UK. Android users are on average quite poor, compared to iPhone users. On average means that not everyone using Android are poor. Why do I have to add this, gah? Edit: Oh come on people, don't downvote me for stating facts. Why is this even a bad thing? HN is supposed to be for smart people, not fanboys? I spent a decade focusing on this market segment since it was ignored by most of the big silicon valley companies. Edit 2: I have come to the realization the HN readers are on average stupid. Edit 3: This is by far the most bizarre discussion thread I have been a part of. I really don't understand why the average reader has problems comprehending what I am writing here.
- AnimalMuppet 11y agoYou're being downvoted, not because we don't like facts, nor because your facts are wrong, nor even because we're stupid. You're being downvoted because what you are saying is completely irrelevant to the topic at hand.
- johansch 11y agoIt is extremely relevant. The reason Android is not a cash cow is that its users primarily live in poor countries where there is very little ad revenue to be had.
- AnimalMuppet 11y agoThat would be extremely relevant... if you had some facts. A bald assertion gives very little to the discussion. A data set (or a reference to one) would be more useful. Even more useful would be more relevant data - like Google ad revenue from users of the Android platform, whether or not broken down by country, and whether or not correlated against average income from that country. Anything else is just speculation, no matter how firmly claimed to be fact.
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- jimrandomh 11y agoThis case is one that Groklaw used to cover, and... I have no idea what's going on there anymore, and don't know where else to look for anything of similar depth and trustworthiness. Groklaw was a news site which covered tech company litigation, which shut down in 2013 because the primary author, Pamela Jones, felt threatened by bulk email collection. (http://www.groklaw.net/article.php?story=20130818120421175 http://www.groklaw.net/article.php?story=20130818120421175) Finding out that the old cases it covered are still going through appeals and maneuverings, its absence is deeply felt.
- shrewduser 11y agodamn i miss groklaw. plz come back.
- saganus 11y agoI knew Growklaw shutdown some time ago, but never had the chance to read this entry. Wow. It's very dark. It really made me think. However... aside from that, and trying to shake down a bit of that darkness, I read the update with Sheier's advice, and this stood out: "Prefer symmetric cryptography over public-key cryptography. " Why would that be? I've never actually read anything that would touch on the subject. Does anyone have any references to why are these comments so? is it that symmetric crypto can use larger keys? or is it because using an OTP makes it unbreakabale?
- RickHull 11y agoIt seems like Oracle's reasoning could also be used to gauge how much revenue lithium-ion batteries generate for Google.
- salmonet 11y agoThis turned out to be a very wise $50 MM acquisition on google's part
- bitmapbrother 11y agoYes, but in retrospect Google would have gotten into the game one way or another. If not Android it would have either been their own in-house solution or even WebOS.
- datashovel 11y agoI seriously can't wait for Oracle stock to crash so Google can just buy them outright. First order of business: Fire the legal department.
- kriro 11y agoI think the lawsuit is ridiculous but from reading that article it feels like Oracle has a decent case if all that matters is convincing a judge. The space race argument and the revenue figures sound like a good enough simplistic argument to score a decent settlement (imo). I hope Google hardballs this but I have a feeling they won't.