Google's Android Devices Exceed One Billion In 2014

Gartner predicts sales of Google Android devices will top 1.1 billion in 2014. This expectation would make Google’s Android the first time to reach one billion. Smartphone technologies are rapidly changing industries. Gartner also forecasts smartphones and media tablets will contribute 84% of semiconductor revenue growth in 2013 and are the segments to watch. The company has expectations that Android will remain the most popular OS. The success of low budget smartphones have boosted this insight. Shipments from Apple are also to increase.

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The largest hardware and networking transactions closed during the year included: Google’s acquisition of Motorola Mobility, a mobile technology solutions provider, for $12.9 billion in the second quarter. PWC also predicted that 2013 will bring more movement on this front as hardware vendors work to round out their converged data center offerings via continued M&A activity.

PWC indicates that like software companies, hardware vendors are focused on ecosystems as they work to drive value to their consumer customers. Companies like Apple, Samsung, Google, Microsoft and others have increasingly connected hardware, software and services to content, distribution and other key parts of the ecosystem in order to better control the user experience.

As an example of broad sector crossover by Internet majors, Google’s recent acquisitions in e-commerce, the Motorola Mobility acquisition, Google’s Fiber rollout, and Google Glass all provide evidence of such movements. Major mobile players competed for consumers. Trend and future developments of 2, 5 and 10 years from now were in the making, according to PWC.

Macquarie analyst Ben Schachter called the rollout a major industry event. “Regardless if it is glasses, watches, wearable monitors, fabrics, etc, we do believe that Google and others will benefit from the Internet being more accessible,” he wrote. “We think that the initial introduction of Google Glass is a watershed moment that will lead to the Internet being available more often and in increasingly innovative formats and applications,” he continued. “That is a positive for Google and others.”