Last week we reported to you that Google was participating in a revenue sharing program with service providers and some handset makers:
“….part of the answer appears to be that Google is sharing advertising revenues with carriers that use Android, according to multiple sources who are familiar with the deals. In some cases, Google is also cutting deals with the handset makers. The revenue-sharing agreements only occur when the handsets come with Google applications, like search, maps and Gmail, since that is not a requirement of Android. Google declined to comment, and said terms of its agreements with partners are confidential….”
Since then, Google has come out to strongly deny this as rumor and has gone on to state:
“We share revenue on search, not on mobile applications. The same is true for non-Android devices that use Google as the default search engine.”
To back this up, Dan Frommer of Business Insider notes that paying partners ad shares for such apps would also be detrimental to Google’s bottom line:
“Google lists at least 15 mobile apps, none of which is generating heavy ad dollars. If Google apportioned money made from ads for all of its mobile apps to carriers and manufacturers, it would undermine the point of Android, which is to carve out as big a slice of the mobile Web ad pie as possible.”
Regardless of where income is generated from, with the increasing proliferation of Android devices, that income is growing.
[Source eWeek, BusinessInsider]
