I missed out on one of the stats that Google threw up on the screen at yesterdays Google IO Keynote, Google announced that activations of Android devices has now progressed from 900,000 per day just over 2 weeks ago to now 1 Million activations per day, totalling 400 million devices world wide. Bear in mind these are individual devices based on the unique Identifier of the phone. Pretty impressive growth there Google, check out the video they put up :
Microsoft Windows only ships about a million copies a day. So give it another few weeks, and Android becomes the world’s fastest-selling OS!
My tab P1000 gets a new ID every time I do a factory reset, I am testing ROM builds so this can be quite a few times a day. That unique ID isn’t so unique. I know I am a rare case but still if it is the same for everyone getting a new ID with a factory reset then the numbers are bigger than reality.
Believe what you want but this theory has been debunked by Jerry Hildebrand from Android Central :
When a new Android device with a cellular radio has a Google account signed into it, it’s counted as an activation. Each device only gets counted once — not when you flash a new ROM, or when you sell it, just the first time the device is registered.