How Does Google Make Money with Android?

Android is a highly popular mobile phone operating system, and a corresponding open-source project intended for all mobile devices. It was launched by Google in the year 2007 and it has been providing an eco-system for both manufacturers and app developers to create products around it. Even though Google is the head of Android's operations, the company does not own the operating system. It spends many hours contributing to the Android Open Source Project that costs it lots of money, but it is surprising to know that the Big G gives the operating system away for free. This means that you don't have to either pay or seek its permission to use the operating system. The biggest question here is, how does Google make money with Android?

When internet giant broke it to its shareholders that it would give the operating system for free, everyone got skeptical about the strategy that it had in mind. It was after a while did the shareholders came to understand Google's intention with Android. What kind of company is Google? Well, some will tell you that Google is a search engine company, and others will say that it is an email company. There are also those who will define it as a web host, or an application provider for business, or a content distribution network provider...the list goes on and on. Basically, Google is an advertising company, i.e. it sells advertisements. It sells ads that it includes on its search results, email, websites and on apps. The company doesn't just sell ads, but it also matches them up with the relevant viewers. It does so by figuring out who the target audience is first to ensure that the ads are more relevant to the people viewing them.

Just because the Big G gives away Android OS for free doesn't necessarily mean that it doesn't make money. It makes money by licensing the Google Apps that are incorporated on most Android devices. Applications such as Google Search, Gmail, the Android Market and others come in GAPPS. Google makes money with every app that is sold through the Android Market. It is not just the paid apps that make Google money, but even free apps do so as well. App developers are required to pay some amount in order for them to have an account or list their apps on Android Market. Ad-sponsored apps also use Google Mobile Ads, which means that the company gets revenue from them as well.

However, Google isn't so much after earning money from the applications that are sold through their Market, or even by charging app developers an admission fee. Instead, the company saw that computers were not only getting smaller, but they were also getting more mobile and connected to the internet in more ways. This meant that Google would not only be found on personal computers, but also on mobile devices as well. It would also mean that Google's ads would get a higher exposure. When Google Ads makes their way in a wide range of devices, the company gets to earn even more money. Google learns who the internet users are, what they are interested in and how they search for stuff. It then helps the users find what they are looking for in an intuitive manner on any device and from anywhere. It is Android that enables this internet giant to help mobile users find what they are looking for.

Google also looks into the future and predicts that searching using input other than test will be the next big thing. Besides test search, users can turn to spoken search. Google acquired a company known as Grand Central, which is now called Google Voice. It not only gives users free voicemail transcriptions, but it also allows users to call Google to get free 411 information from their mobile devices. Searching by taking pictures was another thing that Google predicted would be big, so it invented Google Glass. When tied in with the new face-recognition feature of Picasa, Google Glass will soon enable users search and locate their loved ones just by snapping their pictures.