Android
The company behind the Android mobile operating system, founded as Android Inc. and acquired by Google.
Founded
2003The company behind the Android mobile operating system, founded as Android Inc. and acquired by Google.
When Google bought Android in July 2005, the startup had roughly eight employees, no product, and a reported price near $50 million that was never officially disclosed. Founder accounts describe a camera-operating-system idea, investor rejections, and a last-minute $10,000 cash loan from Steve Perlman that kept the company alive until the acquisition.
The team moved to Google's Mountain View campus on July 11, 2005, and the purchase was publicly confirmed on August 17, 2005. Google's mergers lead later called the deal the company's best ever.
Android Inc.'s founding output became the Android mobile platform: a Linux-based operating system for smartphones and tablets that Google announced with the Open Handset Alliance on November 5, 2007. The first commercial device, the HTC-built T-Mobile G1, went on US sale on October 22, 2008.
The offering family under the Android brand now spans the core mobile operating system, Android Auto for cars, Android TV for televisions, Wear OS for watches, Android XR for headsets and glasses, and Android Enterprise for business device management.
Android is the world's most widely used mobile operating system, running on roughly 70 percent of global smartphones and more than 3 billion active devices as of 2021. Its open-license strategy, announced in November 2007, displaced Windows Phone, Symbian, and BlackBerry as the default stack for manufacturers without proprietary platforms.
Platform economics concentrate in Google services and Play distribution, and the Android brand extends across phones, tablets, watches, televisions, cars, and extended-reality devices under Alphabet's ownership.
Android's launch advantage was openness: the November 2007 announcement framed it as a fully integrated mobile stack licensed under a permissive open-source model, and the 34-member Open Handset Alliance delivered instant carrier, handset-maker, and silicon distribution that no single-vendor platform matched.
Co-founder Nick Sears' prior T-Mobile relationships produced the first carrier agreement, and the G1 launch in October 2008 established the notification-shade and app-store model that remained central to the platform.
Android was given away: the 2007 announcement licensed the platform openly rather than selling it, and Google kept the operating system free to end users after the acquisition. OEM access runs through Google Mobile Services licensing rather than an operating-system fee.
Monetization flows through Google services and the Play app store launched alongside the T-Mobile G1 in October 2008, which let developers ship directly to users without carrier approval.