Google: Android has 450k apps, 850k activations a day

Google's Android operating system, which has been the most popular mobile OS in the world for more than a year, is continuing to grow.

Andy Rubin, the Google senior vice president who oversees Android, tweeted: "At Mobile World Congress in Barcelona. Enjoying watching the ecosystem at work. 850k activations a day now!" In December, Google was at a pace of about 700,000 Android activations a day. That's up from 500,000 activations a day in June 2011 and 300,000 a day in December 2010. Rubin offered more numbers on Android's growth in a company blog post, stating that the software, which is given away free to hardware makers, had a "year-on-year growth rate of more than 250%." More than 300 million Android devices have been activated since the operating system's launch in 2008 and more than 800 models of phones and tablets have been built running Android as well, Rubin said. At the annual Mobile World Congress event, hardware makers are showing off more than 100 Android devices, he said.