Global profits from the sale of Android smartphones hit $5.3 billion during the first quarter of 2013, as Google revealed that 900 million devices running the OS have been activated since it launched four and a half years ago.

According to Strategy Analytics, Samsung took a huge 95 per cent of profits – around $5.1 billion – from Android smartphone sales during the period. Strategy Analytics believes Samsung generated more revenue and profit from Android than Google does.

“An efficient supply chain, sleek products and crisp marketing have been among the main drivers of Samsung’s impressive profitability,” said senior analyst Woody Oh.

LG took second place with a 3 per cent global profit share, but lacks the volume scale needed to match Samsung.

“Samsung has strong market power and it may use this position to influence the future direction of the Android ecosystem. For example, Samsung could request first or exclusive updates of new software from Android before rival hardware vendors,” said executive director Neil Mawston.

Strategy Analytics also found that Android accounted for 43 per cent of the entire smartphone industry’s operating profits of around $12.5 billion during the first quarter.

As well as device activations, Android boss Sundar Pichai also revealed at the Google I/O event that more than 48 billion Google Play apps have now been installed – with 2.5 billion downloads taking place in the past month. In addition, revenue per user for Google Play has doubled year-over-year.