Microsoft Is Apparently Making More Money Out Of HTC Android Phone Sales than Its Own Windows Phone

Image via CrunchBase

There has been a very vivid and unbelievable revelation made by an analyst from Citi, Walter Pritchard, who shared very strange findings today declaring that Microsoft might be making even more money from Android system than it might make from its own Windows Phone.

It was stated in a post published on Friday, which identified that Microsoft gets an almost $5 for each sale made on every HTC phone running Android. The absurd settlement was made due to a case of patent agreement between HTC and Microsoft last year. To protect the Taiwanese company from a proposed patent infringement lawsuit, that could have been filed by Microsoft over the Android operating system. It will be even more beneficial for the C.E.O. of Microsoft, Steve Ballmer, and his company if they are able to seek agreements with other Android phone makers, which it is in the midst of suing currently. Pritchard has predicted that these companies might even agree to a settlement from between $7.50 to $12.50 per device sold.

Another analyst, Horace Dediu, from Asymco, also stated in his report on Friday that “a rough estimate of the number of HTC Android devices shipped is 30 million. If HTC paid $5 per unit to Microsoft, that adds up to $150 million Android revenues for Microsoft.” On the other hand, if we compare it to the sales of Microsoft’s own Windows Phone licenses, they are sold almost round about 2 million, hence “estimating that the license fee is $15/WP phone,” says Dediu, “that makes Windows Phone revenues to date $30 million.”

Hence, if you further add the earnings Microsoft might get after agreeing in contracts with other companies, when it attempts to sue them for infringing its patent over Android devices, it is easy to predict another large sum of money gained by Microsoft. Especially if we calculate the income from the other phone makers at a rate from $7.50 to $12.50 per device sold, the revenue gained by Microsoft will be huge.

This will in turn leave the income of Microsoft from its own Windows Phone relatively very small. So even though Microsoft might not be having towering sales of its own OS and Windows Phone, Ballmer is still looking to gain big profits from its mobile OS department of Microsoft.

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