Android ad revenues expected to top $1 billion in 2012

Google (NASDAQ:GOOG) could rake in more than $1 billion in advertising revenues across its Android mobile platform in 2012, according to Piper Jaffray analyst Gene Munster. In a research note published Tuesday, Munster writes that Android yielded mobile ad revenues of $5.90 per user in 2010, and anticipates the total will increase to $9.85 per user in 2012; in addition, the analyst expects in-app advertising across Android Market applications will boost monetization per user in the months ahead. Munster adds that he believes Android users will reach 133 million by next year, translating to ad revenues of about $1.3 billion. Overall Google revenue for 2012 is expected to surpass $31 billion.

In mid-2010, then-Google CEO Eric Schmidt said Android advertising and digital content download efforts are on pace to drive revenues exceeding $10 billion a year. "If we have a billion people using Android, you think we can't make money from that?" Schmidt told The Wall Street Journal, explaining Google could earn $10 billion annually at a rate of $10 per user per year. Schmidt added revenues also could derive from selling premium digital content from newspapers and other media providers. Munster believes Google generated $850 million in total mobile revenue in 2010, with Android accounting for about 16 percent, or $130 million.

Shipments of Android smartphones surpassed Symbian device shipments for the first time in the fourth quarter of 2010, according to technology analysis firm Canalys. Android shipments topped 33.3 million in Q4, translating to a 32.9 percent share of the global smartphone market, Canalys reports--a year earlier, Android shipments represented just 8.7 percent of the worldwide market, a 615.1 percent leap. Symbian shipments grew from 23.9 million in Q4 2009 to 31 million in the most recent quarter--however, its worldwide market share plummeted from 44.4 percent to 30.6 percent during that time. Apple (NASDAQ:AAPL) iPhone shipments increased from 8.7 million in Q4 2009 to 16.2 million a year later--its smartphone market share slipped from 16.3 percent to 16.0 percent.

For more:
- read this Forbes article

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