Google chief Eric Schmidt says Android winning war against iOS

Google Chief Eric Schmidt says Android is ‘pretty clearly’ winning the smartphone war versus Apple. In an interview with Bloomberg, Schmidt said that the booming demand for Android smartphones added share at the expense of other software providers.

Comparing the lead Android has over Apple in the mobile software market with the rate at which Microsoft expanded in the desktop software market in the 1990s, Schmidt asserted in the interview that the war was over and his team had won. He added that a staggering 1.3 million Android devices a day were being activated.

The confidence Schmidt exuded in the interview is not baseless. According to the IDC Worldwide Quarterly Mobile Phone Tracker released in November, Android smartphone shipments worldwide reached 136 million units, accounting for 75 percent of the 181.1 million smartphones shipped in the third quarter of 2012. The 91.5 percent year-over-year growth was nearly double the overall market growth rate of 46.4 percent. Apple’s iOS came in second with only 14.9 percent share.

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Google Chief believes Android is clearly winning the mobile war against iOS

Mary Meeker, in her November study, also pointed out the presence of more Internet-enabled Android devices than Windows ones. Meeker stated that in Q1 2012, the former raced ahead of Microsoft's mobile OS. At the time, Android was at around 90 million units shipped per quarter. Meeker added that by the end of 2013, there will be 160 million Android devices, 100 million Windows devices, and 80 million iOS devices shipped per quarter.

Bloomberg added that by giving away Android, Google yields revenue to hardware partners such as Samsung Electronics Co. Schmidt is willing to make that sacrifice because it drives demand for ads and other Internet-based services that benefit Google over time. While Android is clearly burning a hole in Apple’s OS market share, Apple is reaping profits made from hardware sales.

“The core strategy is to make a bigger pie,” said Schmidt. “We will end up with a not perfectly controlled and not perfectly managed bigger pie by virtue of open systems.”

Schmidt does have a valid point when he believes Android is running further ahead of iOS. Apple maintains a certain degree of exclusivity when it produces handsets by itself. Compare this to the sheer number of Android handsets hitting the shelves every year and it becomes clear why Android is the hare that will win the race this time round.

Schmidt also spoke about the competitiveness of other Google Services like the Chrome web browser and Gmail. The Google chief spoke highly about Google+ and said that the 100 million active user social website ‘is a viable competition to Facebook.’

Google has been giving Google+ all its TLC in order to make it one of its flagship products. Right from giving it facelifts and adding newer features like communities every day, to integrating YouTube and Google Play services with Google+ profiles, the company seems keen to make Google+ an indispensable part of everyone’s lives.