Google's Schmidt forecasts annual Android revenues to top $10B

Google chairman and CEO Eric Schmidt said the company is positioning its Android mobile operating system to drive revenues exceeding $10 billion a year, galvanized by advertising and digital content downloads. In an interview with The Wall Street Journal, Schmidt said Android's growing popularity with consumers guarantees Google's signature web search, maps and ad-subsidized services will continue to thrive as consumers migrate from the desktop to the smartphone--Google now activates 160,000 new Android devices each day. "If we have a billion people using Android, you think we can't make money from that?" Schmidt said, explaining Google could earn $10 billion annually at a rate of $10 per user per year. Schmidt added revenues could derive from selling premium digital content from newspapers and other media providers.

In related news, the Journal reports Google is in talks with social gaming developers including Zynga, Playfish and Playdom as it continues to build a social networking platform to rival Facebook. Citing sources briefed on the matter, the social gaming offering is part of the broader "Google Me" social media initiative said to be in the works. Schmidt declined to confirm details of the project--asked by the Journal whether Google Me might resemble Facebook, he said "The world doesn't need a copy of the same thing." In response to questions about Google's rumored investment in Zynga, Schmidt said "We haven't announced it" but added "you can expect a partnership with Zynga" in the future.

Rumors about Google Me first surfaced in late June, when Digg founder Kevin Rose posted a now-deleted Twitter message reading "Ok, umm, huge rumor: Google to launch Facebook competitor very soon 'Google Me,' very credible source." Early Facebook exec Adam D'Angelo--co-founder of Q&A search solution Quora--later corroborated Rose's tweet, explaining Google "realized that Buzz wasn't enough and that they need to build out a full, first-class social network. They are modeling it off of Facebook. Unlike previous attempts (before Buzz at least), this is a high-priority project within Google. They had assumed that Facebook's growth would slow as it grew, and that Facebook wouldn't be able to have too much leverage over them, but then it just didn't stop, and now they are really scared." A series of non-denials from Google execs have further ignited industry speculation on what's to come.

For more on Schmidt's expectations for Android:
- read this Wall Street Journal article

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