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> Google only develop Android and Chrome to fuel their ad business, those two product can’t turn a profit on their own The Google Play store has multiple billi

> Google only develop Android and Chrome to fuel their ad business, those two product can’t turn a profit on their own The Google Play store has multiple billions of dollars of revenue. Revenue which comes from consumer spending, not ads. An article from SensorTower (https://sensortower.com/blog/app-revenue-and-downloads-1h-2020 https://sensortower.com/blog/app-revenue-and-downloads-1h-20...) says that in the first half of 2020, people spent $17.3 billion through Google Play. Assuming Google gets a 30% cut of all of that, it would be $5.2 billion of revenue for half a year, so annualized that'd be over $10 billion/year. Perhaps Google doesn't get a 30% cut of absolutely every transaction (different rules could apply to books, music, TV, and movies), but it gives you a ballpark number. The Play store and the Android OS aren't the same thing, of course, but creating Android obviously helped put Google in the position to get that Play revenue. And if it were to stop developing Android, that would probably hurt Play revenue.

gumby 6y ago
Do they spend more than $5B on android though? I don't know, though I wouldn’t be especially surprised. Edit: I made a typo and left out “wouldn’t” which reverses the sense of my comment.
- dannyw 6y ago
  If they do, then it’s uncompetitive and it deserves to be broken up. We may not be in a mobile OS duopoly if Google wasn’t allowed to dump infinite amounts of money into a loss leading product.
  - sgc 6y ago
    In that case every device should allow users to trivially change their OS, or hardware manufacturers who make operating systems could be accused of the same thing. Many companies make products that don't make money but help promote and sell their products that do. My point is that os/app store metrics are too narrow rather than approval, because I am far from in love with the business model of any of the companies targeted by this report. Although I think the right move would be more consumer-friendly regulation rather than break ups.
  - laurent92 6y ago
    Google dumps money into Firefox too. They can argue there is no special treatment for Android, and they could justify it after a breakup by the Android company serving “major ads” for Google.
ksec 6y ago
>so annualized that'd be over $10 billion/year Funny that is the amount Google paid Apple for being the default search engine.

gumby 6y ago

Do they spend more than $5B on android though? I don't know, though I wouldn’t be especially surprised. Edit: I made a typo and left out “wouldn’t” which reverses the sense of my comment.

dannyw 6y ago
If they do, then it’s uncompetitive and it deserves to be broken up. We may not be in a mobile OS duopoly if Google wasn’t allowed to dump infinite amounts of money into a loss leading product.
- sgc 6y ago
  In that case every device should allow users to trivially change their OS, or hardware manufacturers who make operating systems could be accused of the same thing. Many companies make products that don't make money but help promote and sell their products that do. My point is that os/app store metrics are too narrow rather than approval, because I am far from in love with the business model of any of the companies targeted by this report. Although I think the right move would be more consumer-friendly regulation rather than break ups.
- laurent92 6y ago
  Google dumps money into Firefox too. They can argue there is no special treatment for Android, and they could justify it after a breakup by the Android company serving “major ads” for Google.

ksec 6y ago

>so annualized that'd be over $10 billion/year Funny that is the amount Google paid Apple for being the default search engine.