A day at the races
Google activates a staggering 300,000 Android smartphones every day, according to a Tweet by the search giant's VP of engineering, Andy Rubin.
It is widely believed that this figure beats Apple's sales as well as Symbian's. In fact, Symbian's VP Niklas Savander revealed that Nokia sold 260,000 phones a day, which he claimed while speaking at Nokia World 2010, was more than Android and iPhone combined, IntoMobile reported.
Based on the 300k activation figure, Google is shifting almost 10 million phones every month, beating Apple which Fortune reported enjoyed its best quarter yet, shifting over 14 million iPhones.
Meanwhile, in related news, owners of Android phones typically use more data services than those with other smartphones, clogging network capacity, according to a new survey.
Telecom network technology firm Arieso found data calls on certain handsets can increase by up to 250 percent compared to the iPhone 3G, which it used as a benchmark.
Michael Flanagan, CTO of Arieso, said, "Smartphone subscriptions are rising and so too is subscriber appetite for mobile data. Since the launch of the iPhone3G, we've seen a multitude of popular new smartphones arrive on the market, successfully driving app and service usage. It's a trend that's set to continue. Operators must now be able to quantify the impact of the devices they support, and how subscribers use them, and prepare their networks accordingly."
The Arieso analysis compares the data consumption of users of newer smartphones, such as the BlackBerry Bold 9700, Google's Nexus One, HTC's Desire, the Sony Ericsson Xperia, and Apple's iPhone 4, against the iPhone3G as a ‘normalised benchmark'.
The study found that Android users are ‘particularly data hungry' (more than iPhone users) in terms of data call volumes, time connected to a network and data volume uploaded and downloaded.
Android owners score highest in both the ‘uplink data volume' and ‘downlink data' categories according to the survey. It said Samsung Galaxy users typically upload 126 percent more data than iPhone 3G owners, while HTC Desire users download 41 percent more data than their iPhone 3G-touting peers.
Intriguingly Arieso believes people are not increasingly using their mobiles to make voice calls, suggesting smartphone adopters are mostly using their mobiles for data consumption purposes.
The report also discovered that iPhone 4 users are more hungry for data than their iPhone3G counterparts, typically making 44 percent more data calls, downloading 41 percent more data to their devices, and spending 67 percent more time connected to the network for data.
"Mobile operators are playing ‘Guess Who?' with their subscribers. The variations in data use between various devices highlight the pressing need for a more accurate, in-depth and intelligent view into the potential impact of individual handset users on the network," said Flanagan.
"Right now, operators struggle to see their network as their customers see it, especially regarding performance and quality of service within individual buildings. They are risking rising operational costs, and delivering a sub-par quality of service to customers. They must adopt a new, more precise approach to monitoring and optimizing their networks," he added.
