Google opened its I/O keynote on Wednesday by quoting a jaw-dropping stat: 900 million Android activations.
The figure comes after Google had claimed 400 million activations at last year's show. The OS was introduced four and a half years ago. As of July 2012, Android's chief rival, iOS, had 410 million activations.
"People are adopting these devices at an amazing pace," Google SVP of Chrome and Android Sundar Pichai said. "When you look at all of these computing devices, it’s a multi-screen world … they have sensors, they can look, they can feel."
Pichai also announced that 48 billion apps have been installed on Android and 2.5 billion have been installed over the last month. Apple is closing in on 50 billion app downloads for iOS this week.