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By Dean Wilson

ANDROID USE IS GROWING at a phenomenal rate, with more than half a million new devices bearing the Google operating system being activated every day.

The revelation came from a tweet by Andy Rubin, SVP of mobile at Google and the guy in charge of the Android project.

It was just over six months ago that Rubin reported daily activations at 300,000, which was a significant number at the time. It was 100,000 more than the 200,000 daily activations it recorded in August of 2010, but now the increase is 200,000, showing that the rate of growth is steadily increasing.

And that growth is set to continue, with Rubin claiming that the figure is increasing by 4.4 per cent week on week, which means that we could yet see Android reach a cool million daily activations by the end of the year, if not substantially more.

Google's release of Android 3.X Honeycomb is likely to have had some impact on the figures, as this was specifically designed for tablets, which previously had to make do with a smartphone version made somewhat bigger.

Smartphones are still likely the highest contributor, however, with many new Android models hitting the market such as the HTC Evo 3D, which is set to arrive in the UK next month.

Android has been stealing market share from competitors for some time. In April it dominated a third of the market, according to Comscore figures, and Gartner believes it will rule close to half of the smartphone market by the end of 2012. While it might seem like an exaggeration to some, the latest figures from Rubin show just what kind of potential is still left in the little green robot. µ The Inquirer