Google and Verizon Wireless are teaming to get Google’s Android mobile platform humming on the largest wireless network in the U.S., with its 87 million subscribers. Both companies committed to putting a lot of dough into the effort.
In addition to Verizon Wireless, Android has agreements with two other major wireless carriers, T-Mobile and Sprint, and you’ll be able to find Android on nine handsets.
However, rest assured that Apple isn’t discontinuing production of the iPhone because of this new Google-Verizon partnership, and developers — travel code-writers and others — aren’t slowing in their app-building for the iPhone.
Android, in fact, has a lot of proving to do in the marketplace.
Still, as smartphone mania takes over the airwaves, Android has more than a few things going for it.
Mark Mahaney, director of Internet research for Citi Investment Research says: “Search is typically the entry point for information gathering on the mobile phone, as it is for the PC, and Google has noted that Local Search on the mobile device indexes higher than the desktop by 2x-3x; and click through rates and cost per clicks on mobile search ads should long-term be higher than desktop ads, especially due to transaction intent and the location-based queries.”
Google seems to know more than a little bit about search, which should boost Android’s traction on Verizon Wireless, T-Mobile and Sprint.
And, travel advertisers will be monitoring it all to see if those click through rates on the Android platform, with its roster of telecom partners, really live up to the billing.
I assume the sizes of the Android Marketplace or the iPhone App Store is a function of how long the device(s) have been on the market and how many have been sold.
Apple clearly has a huge headstart in terms of the length of time their App Store has been around, and I think iPhones sold number is in the 30 million range these days. Android is nowhere near that number today.
The Android Marketplace can obviously never catch up to the length of time on the market, but they can definitely surpass the number of handsets walking around in people’s pockets. With so many manufacturers making better Android handsets all the time, there’s just no way that Apple can keep up their lead over the long term.
A new Gartner study about that very topic: http://www.macworld.com/article/143170/2009/10/android.html
Great point, Jeff. Undoubtedly the market will change, as Gartner points out. I wonder if developers will take to Android as they have to the iPhone. Then again, if you build it, they will come.