Google: Expect 18 Android Phones by Year's End
Summer Of '09 Phone War update: By year's end, there will be at least 18 phones on the market worldwide based on the Android operating system, Google disclosed for the first time today. — Andy Rubin, senior director for Mobile Platforms …
Context & Ripple Effects
The 18-device figure closes the loop on a question Google has been answering since November 2007, when Andy Rubin's team framed Android not as a single handset — the much-speculated 'Gphone' — but as an operating system any manufacturer could build on. Rumors of a February launch ran through late 2007, and by October 2008 the real test was whether T-Mobile could move half a million units of the one phone then available.
What changed today is disclosure: Rubin put a hard number on the pipeline for the first time, confirming at least 18 Android phones worldwide by year-end. That validates the bets manufacturers had been making quietly, including Samsung's Android plans laid out in April, and reframes Android from a T-Mobile experiment into a multi-vendor lineup.
First-order effects
- Handset makers including Samsung move from tentative commitments to confirmed shelf space — with 18 devices promised globally, each OEM is now competing against other Android licensees, not just against the iPhone.
- Developers targeting Android suddenly have a materially larger installed-base trajectory to write against, easing the chicken-and-egg problem that dogged the platform when only one carrier-sold device existed.
Second-order effects
- Carriers weighing iPhone exclusivity deals gain negotiating leverage, since Android gives them a credible second option for a touch-screen app phone without ceding software control to Apple.
- Incumbent smartphone platforms — Symbian, Windows Mobile, RIM — face pressure to match Android's zero-license-fee, open-source model or justify their per-device economics to the same manufacturers Google just counted as allies.
Third-order effects
- If the 18-device cadence holds, smartphone competition structurally shifts from flagship-vs-flagship hardware battles to platform ecosystems, where scale comes from many OEMs shipping one OS — the dynamic Google set up when it chose open licensing over building its own phone.
- Carrier distribution power grows relative to any single handset vendor, because a platform with 18 devices lets operators pick and rotate hardware instead of anchoring their lineup to one exclusive partner.
The trend: Mobile is consolidating around licensed operating-system platforms whose reach is measured in OEM lineups rather than individual handsets, with Android as the fastest-expanding counterweight to vertically integrated rivals.