The $1 billion run rate figure cited by Google for mobile revenues includes income from all their mobile properties. My estimate of these properties’ revenues is:
- AdMob which runs on many phones including non-smartphone devices world-wide. In 2009 Google announced that it was running at a rate of $100 million/yr. It would not be surprising if this figure has tripled since then.
- Search placement on the iPhone . Google has a placement agreement with Apple which is likely to be over $200 million range (based on what Microsoft paid Verizon for a multi-year deal on Bing, this seems quite a low price). Assuming Google breaks even, then iPhone is worth about $200 million. We don’t know whether Apple takes a cut of the total revenue, but that seems likely.
- Search from Android. This could be worth $200 million though rising quite rapidly.
- Apps. This is probably worth significantly less than $100 million. Ads within apps are monetized through AdMob.
The total is under $800 million so there is still $200m unaccounted for. Perhaps it’s all Android search/services. Perhaps there are agreements in place with other vendors for revenue share. We don’t know. The information is not public.
My estimate would be that Android could be worth between $300 million to $500 million/yr
