Dishes stats and promises carrier billing and own version of Android Market.
The buzz around Android shows no sign of abating: T-Mobile USA has coughed up some numbers on its Android users, while outlining its future plans for Google's smartphone platform.
First the stats, as reported by MobileCrunch. 50% of people who own T-Mobile's myTouch handset (known as the HTC Magic elsewhere in the world) launch the Android Market client once a day.
Meanwhile, 80% of myTouch owners are launching their browser at least once a day, while more than 40% are accessing "social sites" several times a day.
These numbers were revealed in a presentation by T-Mobile USA CTO Cole Brodman at the Open Mobile Summit in San Francisco, and he had more news to show the carrier's determination not to let Verizon and its Droid steal all the Android hype this month.
Brodman said that T-Mobile will soon launch carrier billing for Android Market, letting users buy apps on their phone bills rather than through the Google Checkout payment system.
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This could be big. "Historically, research has shown that with carrier billing, there's a big uptick of 30 to 40% in app or content downloads," T-Mobile's director of mobile applications and partner programs Venetia Espinoza told MocoNews after the presentation.
Meanwhile, T-Mobile is also launching its own dedicated channel in Android Market, highlighting its recommended apps and games. It will be updated every fortnight with new suggestions, and the carrier is inviting developers to pitch it their apps for inclusion.
This kind of operator customisation has always been held up as a potential strength for Android - developers will be hoping it, plus the carrier billing, leads to an upswing in sales.
