Android Activation Reaches 850,000 Per Day

On Monday, February 27 Andy Rubin, Google’s senior vice president of mobile, announced that there are now more than 850,000 Android activations each and every day.

Rubin tweeted, “At Mobile World Congress in Barcelona. Enjoying watching the ecosystem at work. 850k activations a day now!"

This is definitely some great news for Google. Just two months ago, Rubin announced that Android activations had reached more than 700,000 per day. In a mere sixty days (approximately), Google was able to jump 150,000 activations per day.

Android has been having plenty of success in the past couple months. On Christmas Eve and Christmas Day alone, there were 3.7 million Android activations. This wave of new activations then led to more than 1.2 billion iOS and Android app downloads between Christmas Day and New Year’s Eve.

Android has quickly been climbing the activation ladder. In April there were 350,000 activation per day; 500,000 in June and 550,000 back in November.

Nielsen reported earlier this year that Android was the most popular mobile platform in the United States. In December Android nabbed 46.9 percent of the new smartphone sales market; however, this was down from 61.6 percent in October. The decline was due to the release of the iPhone 4S.

Bottom line: Android seems to be doing quite well. Who knows, in a couple months Rubin could be reporting a million activations per day. You never know!

Source: PCMag - Android Activations Hit 850,000 Per Day

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Nielsen Survey Shows Age and Income Effect Smartphone Ownership

A Nielsen survey of more than 20,000 mobile consumers was recently released. It revealed that “whether or not you have a smartphone is closely related to both how old you are and how much money you make.”

It seems as though if you fall between the ages of 24 and 34 and make more than $100,000 a year, it is incredibly likely that you own a smartphone.

Of the 20,000 consumers that were surveyed, 48 percent said that they owned a smartphone. After conducting the survey, Nielsen then worked to break down that percentage into age groups. Despite the income bracket that 24 to 34-year-olds tend to fall in, 66 percent that were surveyed said that they owned a smartphone. Also, 80 percent of those polled between the ages of 18 and 34, who had purchased a new phone within the past three months, chose to buy a smartphone.

However, as stated previously, age was not the only factor as to whether or not individuals seem to have a smartphone. According to Nielsen, income also seems to be a factor.

"When age and income are both taken into account, older subscribers with higher incomes are more likely to have a smartphone," Nielsen said. "For example, those 55 to 64 making over $100K a year are almost as likely to have a smartphone as those in the 35 to 44 age bracket making $35 to $75K per year."

However, the survey did reveal something a little surprising. Nielsen found that even when individuals in the 18 to 24 year old bracket were making less than $15,000 a year, it did not seem to keep the majority of them from owning a smartphone. Of the individuals polled that met these qualifications, 56 percent of them owned smartphones. However, PCMag mentioned, “In many cases…low-income Americans turn to smartphones for Internet access because it's cheaper than paying for broadband and a computer.”

The results from Nielsen’s survey were very interesting. Some of the results were expected, but some were quite surprising. I think that it will give the smartphone industry some insight into who they should be targeting with their advertising.

Sources: nielsenwire - Survey: New U.S. Smartphone Growth by Age and Income and PCMag - Smartphones Most Popular Among Young, Wealthy

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Google Close to Appointing New Motorola Mobility CEO

Google just recently won U.S. approval to acquire Motorola Mobility Holdings Incorporated. In response to that decision the company is very close to naming Dennis Woodside as head of the entire operation once it is ready according to a statement from three individuals who are very close to the project.

Woodside was in charge of heading up Google's ad sales in America before changing jobs to oversee this new merger. If he gets the job, Woodside would succeed Motorola Mobility CEO Sanjay Jha, according to the insiders, who also declined to be named due to the fact that the decision has yet to be made public officially. Woodside is viewed as a favorite from a list of candidates that includes Christy Wyatt, Motorola Mobility Vice President and CSO John Bucher.

Google is acquiring Motorola Mobility for $12.5 billion. With this deal the company will benefit from Motorola's more than 17,000 patents which will help defend against legal challenges to Google's Android mobile phone software. Spokeswoman for Google Jill Hazelback states, "The company doesn't comment on rumor or speculation. The acquisition hasn't closed." Motorola Spokeswoman Jennifer Erickson also declined to comment on the news saying, "We're focused on running the business and getting the deal closed and wouldn't comment beyond that on executive changes."

Earlier in the month Google was given acceptance to acquire Motorola Mobility from both Europe and the United States and is currently waiting on approval from China. Once China gives the o.k., Google's acquisition of Motorola Mobility will be complete and we can expect to see new things from the company in terms of mobile connectivity.

Source: Engadget - Google 'close' to picking new Motorola Mobility CEO, say the usual gang of sources
Bloomberg - Google to Replace Motorola Mobility CEO

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Angry Birds Is On Its Way to Outer Space

If you are a fan of Angry Birds, then I am sure that you were excited to hear Rovio’s latest announcement: the angry birds are about to head to outer space!

On Friday, February 17 the company announced that it was currently working on a space-themed spinoff of the incredibly popular Angry Birds game. It will be called Angry Birds Space.

Rovio said in a statement that "Angry Birds Space is a completely new game with innovative new gameplay, but with some of the familiar Angry Birds elements that fans already know and love — plus some surprises!"

According to Rovio, the launch of Angry Birds Space is “going to be the biggest game launch since the original Angry Birds!”

The company went on to say, “We’re going to announce more information in early March, and on March 22nd we will launch simultaneously in mobile gaming, animation, retail, and publishing. Not only is this a first for us as an integrated entertainment company, but the first time this has ever been done for a mobile game!”

This is not the first spinoff in the Angry Birds series. There have been Angry Birds Rio and Angry Birds Seasons; however, it sound as though Angry Birds Space will have some new surprises that should make it stand out from the previous spinoffs. It will be interesting to see what Rovio has in store for Angry Birds enthusiasts this time.

Below is the 20-second teaser video that Rovio released with its statement:



Sources: Rovio - Angry Birds Space! and PCMag - Angry Birds Soaring Into Space on March 22

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AT&T Upgrade Fee Doubled

As if you needed yet another reason to hate AT&T, the company has gone and given you another reason anyway. The company, surprisingly enough, reported "blow-out" earnings recently while simultaneously instituting larger, more expensive data plans but thought, "why not slap our customers in the face a little harder?" and decided to double their customers' upgrade fees.

That's right, a leaked memo states that beginning today, February 12th, AT&T will double the original upgrade price of $18 to $36. If you're getting deja vu, don't worry because you're probably remembering the time Sprint did the same thing back in September. Sprint originally had upgrade prices of $18 as well and doubled it to $36.

However, all this was a rumor until Engadget reached out to AT&T who confirmed the horrible news via the following statement, "Wireless devices today are more sophisticated than ever before. And because of that, the costs associated with upgrading to a new device have increased and are reflected in our new upgrade fee. This fee isn't unique to AT&T and this is the first time we're changing it in nearly 10 years."

AT&T has never been my favorite carrier. I prefer to stick with Verizon and, especially now, I'm glad I do. I've heard a lot of problems from people I know that use AT&T, mainly with dropped calls and spotty service. I've heard good things about Sprint but I'm sure they ticked a lot of customers off by increasing their upgrade fees too. With the iPhone available on both Sprint and Verizon, AT&T is quickly losing leverage against theses other companies. If they want to retain customers, then they better stop raising prices.

Source: AT&T
Engadget - AT&T doubling its upgrade fee to $36 on February 12th (update: confirmed)

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