Google Android Monetization

According to a comment from Eric Schmidt, Google makes enough money from Android to pay for its development and more. Apple takes 50% of revenue from ads shown on iOS devices. On Android, Google gets to keep 100%. Google can afford to give its revenue from the Play Store (terrible name) to the wireless carriers because it's making so much more money on ads than it does on iPhone and iPad. Apple has made iOS so inhospitable for Google that it is more financially advantageous for Google to mai

Does Google make money from Android?

Android is free though isn't it? they can have 100% of Google's Android sales in that case :)

Google does not profit from Android, they profit through mobile advertising which has very little to do with a specific phone OS. The profit argument simply points out that the people who are producing Android phones have the lowest profit/handset in the industry and having a "sell more regardless of the low profit levels" strategy such as what Nokia used for the past decade is a recipe for disaster.

Google is controlling profits from advertising and playstore sales by using Android to route traffic to those endpoints.The profit isn't from the direct sale of an Android device, it's from the system the device is a gateway to.

Google makes money whether a user is on Android or iOS - as long as they're using Google services. Android team may not be pleased but it is in Google's best interest to serve as many platforms/users as possible.

Is that because Android was a defensive move against ios to protect the search/advertising income, like Chrome, rather than something they make money from do you think ?

Android is not the platform Google is selling. Google Apps is the platform Google is selling. You can access Google Apps through an Android device, but Google doesn't make a meaningfully larger amount of money when you do than when you access Google Apps through any other means.

Google doesn't (directly) make any money off of any Android handset, so I'd say that's very difficult to assess without knowledge and analysis of the impact Android has had on AdSense revenue, not to mention this money is a continuous stream of revenue following the purchase of an Android phone as opposed to a one-time up-front fee.

Google has tens of billions a year in revenue from Android. Only in comparison to Apple revenue or Google's advertising business can that be called a pittance. :)