Android set to overtake iPhone

SAN FRANCISCO - Phones running Google’s Android operating system are selling at the rate of 200,000 a day, according to Google chief executive Eric Schmidt.

Schmidt made the comments at the Techonomy Conference Thursday, in a video of his talk posted on YouTube.

Schmidt said that the success of Android has more than made up for the huge amounts of money the company poured into its development.

“Trust me that revenue is large enough to pay for all of the Android activities and a whole bunch more,” he said.

The figures presented by Schmidt mean that Android phones are now selling at double the rate they were just two months ago.

According to research firm iSuppli, there will be 75 million Android phones on the market by 2012, up from 25 million in 2009.

The iSuppli study released Thursday said Android would have a 19.4 percent share of the market, compared to 15.9 percent for the 62 million iPhones that are predicted to be sold by 2012.

“Android is taking the smartphone market by storm,” said Tina Teng, senior analyst for iSuppli, in a statement.