Google has reportedly made $31 billion from Android

Have you ever stopped to think just how much money something as large as Android generates for Google? It is the world’s most popular mobile operating system after all, so one could expect the sum to be pretty high. According to one of Oracle’s lawyers, Google’s Android OS has generated a total revenue of $31 billion and $22 billion in profit over the years. Oracle and Google have been up in arms for the past few years, ever since Oracle accused Google of using its Java software in Android without paying for it. These financials, which should never have been made public, were disclosed by the lawyer on January 14th. Google said in a court filing that the lawyer based her numbers on info taken from confidential internal financial documents.

On January 20th, following the original claims, Google urged a San Francisco federal judge to redact portions of the public transcript, claiming that the Oracle lawyer leaked out “extremely sensitive information” that was supposedly marked “Attorney’s Eyes Only.” Google said in the filing:

Google does not publicly allocate revenues or profits to Android separate and apart from Google’s general business. That non-public financial data is highly sensitive, and public disclosure could have significant negative effects on Google’s business.

It’s important to note that this $31 billion sum isn’t yet confirmed, and likely won’t be. The numbers are taken from financial data that’s been derived from internal documents, not taken verbatim. It’s also worth noting that this $31 billion in lifetime revenue isn’t actually that much money when compared to what Google normally generates in revenue each year.

In the end, though, we really haven’t gotten a glimpse into just how valuable Android is to Google, so this is pretty interesting stuff. Do you have any thoughts on these leaked numbers? Let us know what you think in the comments.