Microsoft is one of the biggest tech companies in the world. The Redmond giant has been around for a long time and not only manufactures a range of software equipment, but also their very own hardware in terms of ‘Surface’ devices. The company has recently introduced their new devices under the ‘Lumia’ brand which used to belong to Nokia until Microsoft purchased Nokia’s Devices and Services businesses. The company has been pushing their Windows Phone platform for years now, but it never got to the point we can say it competes with iOS or Android. It is also worth mentioning that Microsoft decided to unify their Windows platforms, and Windows Phone is actually now under the ‘Windows’ branch, starting with the latest version of the OS, Windows 10.
The Redmond giant might not be doing that great as far as their mobile device sales go, but they’re loaded with cash and one of the top earners in the business. Microsoft actually receives a ton of cash thanks to Android’s success, via royalties. For example, Samsung, the biggest player in the Android space, actually paid Microsoft $1,041,642,161 in 2013, yes, over a billion dollars. This mean that the South Korean tech giant actually had to pay around $3.41 per device to Microsoft, and considering how successful Samsung is, that amount of money is huge. Microsoft holds a ton of tech patents and that’s, of course, the reason for such significant payments on Samsung’s part. Samsung is not the only company in this basket, of course, every other Android OEM makes payments to Microsoft thanks to their patent portfolio.
It would surely be interesting to see how much cash does Microsoft get from Android overall, but, unfortunately, we don’t have that info at the moment. Microsoft is not the only company to receive such cash from royalties, other companies do as well, including Samsung, who also not only owns a ton of patents but gets cash from their mobile hardware equipment. As you know, Samsung manufactures mobile displays, chips, flash storages, camera sensors, etc. That is pretty much it, if we stumble upon a more recent and detailed info regarding royalties, we’ll make sure to let you know.