GOOG Alphabet Inc

By Alistair Barr 

Incoming Google Inc. Chief Executive Sundar Pichai said Tuesday that the company's Android mobile operating system had added 400 million users since May 2014, for a total of 1.4 billion.

Android is by far the world's most popular operating system for smartphones, accounting for roughly four of every five phones shipped last year.

Mr. Pichai said most of the recent growth in Android is in emerging economies such as Indonesia and Vietnam. In those two countries, the number of Android users has doubled in a year, he said.

"These people are adopting the smartphone for the first time in many cases," Mr. Pichai said.

Google is trying to get as many people online as possible, hoping those users tap its search and other services. Google makes Android available to handset makers and wireless carriers, who then manufacture and sell the phones, typically at a steep discount to rival Apple Inc.'s iPhones.

Some of the new Android devices don't use Google's official licensed version of the operating system, meaning they don't include key Google services such as search, maps, Gmail or the Play store for apps. This is especially true in China, where Google left the country five years ago. Still, Mr. Pichai said more than one billion people had used the Play store in a recent 30-day period.

Mr. Pichai also reported user growth from other Google devices. About 30,000 new Chromebooks, cheap laptops designed by Google, are being activated each day, mostly in U.S. schools, he said.

He said more than 10,000 companies are testing or using Android for Work, a version of the operating system aimed at businesses.

Mr. Pichai, Google's senior vice president for products, is scheduled to become CEO of Google's core search-and-advertising unit when the company reorganizes as Alphabet Inc. later this year.

Write to Alistair Barr at alistair.barr@wsj.com

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(END) Dow Jones Newswires

September 29, 2015 13:29 ET (17:29 GMT)

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