Google chief claims 60,000 Android phones shipping per day

The statistic came out in Schmidt's first speech to the annual Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, in which he emphasised how Google was adopting a "mobile first" philosophy.

The number of Android phones shipping, if multiplied by 365, equates to 21.9 million per year. Several handset makes have released Android phones, including Motorola's Droid and HTC's Hero.

Apple sold 25 million iPhones last year , while Nokia, which uses the Symbian operating system, sold 20.8 million smartphones in the fourth quarter of 2009 alone.

Android is spearheading Google's efforts to move its business into the mobile platform, where consumers are increasingly spending their time.

Schmidt said Google's programmers were prioritising the development of mobile over desktop applications, because "mobile apps are better apps".

"It's more specific, more human, more location-aware, more satisfying to them," he said.

Schmidt also attempted to smooth relations with mobile network operators, some of whom fear that Google's development in mobile is taking advantage of their infrastructure without giving them a return.

"I feel very, very strongly that we depend on successful businesses for the operators globally, and I disagree that we are trying to turn the operators into dumb pipes," he said.

"We need advanced sophisticated networks, we are not going to be investing in broad scale infrastructure, we are going to have the operators do it."

Earlier in the day, Google was on the receiving end of a call from Vodafone chief executive Vittorio Colao for regulators to look into the mobile search and advertising market, of which the search giant has an 80 per cent share.

Colao said: "I would like to have more competition everywhere. At the moment, you have three players [Google, Yahoo and Microsoft's Bing!] in the fixed space, you have two in the mobile, but kind of only one [Google]."

"I think its important the European Commission and, to some extent, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) in America, should examine the whole value chain and ensure the rules they put in place really enable competition at all levels."