Scale, search, apps and telcos are all critical to Android's success.

Image Credit: Indyposted.com

Google (GOOG) CEO Eric Schmidt said last month that scale was a key to making Android a big profit center.

"If we have a billion people using Android, you think we can't make money from that?  All it would take is $10 per user per year."

Google can't make money directly off of the sale of the Android OS, like Microsoft (MSFT), because of its Open Source roots, so a billion times zero is still zero. How can Google reach the $10 average per handset?

Goldman Sachs' (GS) James Mitchell sees a number of ways in which Google can, and already has, started to financially reap the benefits of Android's success. In a note to investors, he states: More