Judge Claims That Google Lost Big Money on Android in 2010

The high stakes court case between Google and Oracle--which revolves around the Android mobile OS and Java--continues to yield more information about Google's Android business than the company itself ever reveals. Recently, The Verge published a complete internal presentation from Google's Andy Rubin and his team that discussed lofty projections--including specific financial targets--for the Android mobile OS circa 2010. The presentation came to light during the court proceedings between Oracle and Google. Now, more Android numbers have come out through the litigation, and it appears that Android was no profit center as of 2010.

Reuters has reported on a U.S. Judge's statements in court regarding how the "Android mobile platform resulted in a net loss for the company in every quarter of 2010, despite generating roughly $97.7 million in revenue for the first quarter of that year." 

Oracle filed suit against Google in 2010, claiming that Android infringes on its  rights to the Java programming language. Google has countered that Android violates no patents and that copyrights that Oracle claims to have on Java don't apply because of Java's status as an open platform. We explored the issues more fully in this post. 

Google doesn't typically break out numbers for its Android business so the court case is supplying some of the most concrete public information about Android and profits and losses yet. The latest set of numbers show that Google has been willing to eat losses in its Android business, even as it continues to grow the business. 

Meanwhile, the Oracle vs. Google case continues to drag on, after launching in the summer of last year.