September 12, 2012 - 14:53 AMT
500 million Android devices activated globally, Google says

Ahead of the iPhone 5 event, all eyes are on Apple, but Google thought it would be a good time to remind everyone that Android, on the whole, is still bigger than iOS.

According to Google’s Director of Product Management for Android Hugo Barra, 500 million Android devices have been activated globally, Mashable reports

Barra, who shared the news on his Google+ account, also said that over 1.3 million Android devices are added every single day.

This number is even more amazing when you take into account that in July 2012, Google’s Andy Rubin said 900,000 Android devices are activated every day, and in December 2011, that figure was 700,000.

Android can probably thank the huge jump in activations to the success of Samsung’s Galaxy S III, which hit the market late in May 2012. Samsung recently announced it has sold more than 20 million Galaxy S III devices.

Apple used to take part in this game, regularly announcing daily iOS device activations up until 2010, which may or may not have something to do with the fact that Android surpassed iOS in 2011.