Android hits 3 billon app downloads and 350,000 daily device activations

More than 3 billion apps have been downloaded from Google's Android Market. Google has also seen a big boost in the number of Android devices being activated -- that is, sold -- every day.

"We're activating over 350,000 Android devices every day," said Google's Jeff Huber during the company's financial conference call last night. "Android Market is taking off too -- over 3 billion apps have been installed, up 50 per cent in just the last quarter."

If we're reading that statement correctly, that means it took three months for Android to go from 2 billion app downloads to 3 billion, and something like 11.1 million apps were downloaded each day during the past three months. These numbers allow us to compare Android directly to its rivals in the smart-phone software arena.

Apple announced in January that its App Store had passed the 10 billion downloads milestone, three months after passing 7 billion downloads. At one billion downloads a month, that means around 33 million daily app downloads.

Meanwhile, RIM announced in March that its BlackBerry App World was achieving 3 million daily app downloads, while Nokia revealed this week that the Ovi Store is hitting 5 million a day.

In other words, Android Market is growing fast, thanks to those 350,000 daily device activations, but its daily-app-downloads total is still a third of Apple's. That said, the Android Market is beating its other rivals by a considerable margin, and don't forget that Google's store isn't the only place you can download Android apps from.

During the conference call, Google execs also predicted big things for Android tablets this year. "Android has some great products coming along," said Huber.

"The Motorola Xoom is the first device that's come along... It was the product of the show at the Consumer Electronics Show in January. I think you'll see a lot of other products coming along and a lot of innovation in the market around tablets and that format," Huber mused.

Let us know your thoughts in the comments section below or on our Facebook wall. As ever, we'd also be interested to hear about any errors in out maths.