Oracle: Android Has Generated £22bn in Revenues For Google

The long running court room battle between Google and Oracle over Android has revealed the operating system has generated revenue of $31 billion (£22bn) and $22 billion (£15bn) in profit for Google since its creation eight years ago.

Oracle has long claimed that Google had infringed its patent and copyright when it used Java to develop the Android OS. Specifically, Oracle alleges that Android infringes a number of Java APIs. Oracle is seeking more than $1bn (£641m) in the case.

Last August Oracle accused Google of “destroying” the market for Java, after it expanded its lawsuit against the company.

Money Maker

“Look at the extraordinary magnitude of commerciality here,” the Oracle attorney, Annette Hurst, was quoted by Bloomberg as telling a federal magistrate judge as she discussed Android revenue and profit.

A Reuters reporter meanwhile also managed to see the court transcript, but Google objected and said the Android disclosures should not have been made public, and asked the court to place it under seal.

The document has now apparently been removed from the publicly accessible portion of the court’s computer system.

Google Pays Apple

Google launched Android Alpha in late 2007, with the first commercial version released in September 2008.

Since then, Android have gone onto dominate the smartphone industry, and judging by the Oracle revelation, is making the search engine giant plenty of money in the process.

But that is not the only juicy revelation to emerge, after Bloomberg also revealed that Google is paying Apple a stunning amount of money to keep its search bar on the iPhone.

Apple reportedly received $1 billion (£700m) from Google in 2014, according to the now vanished transcript of court proceedings from Oracle’s copyright lawsuit against Google.

It seems that Google has an agreement with Apple that gives the iPhone maker a percentage of the revenue Google generates through the Apple device.

How well do you know Google’s secrets? Find out with our quiz!

Tom Jowitt

Tom Jowitt is a leading British tech freelancer and long standing contributor to Silicon UK. He is also a bit of a Lord of the Rings nut...

View Comments

  • Oracle's going to maximize the revenues & profits that Google made from Android for two reasons:

    1) maximize the amount it's due in royalties for the obvious copyright infringement;

    2) even if the amount was far less, Google won't protest it publicly becuase it would divulge how little they make from Android. Impact to the stock could be worse than paying Oracle $4 Billion.

    Smart move by Oracle.

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