Any Google shareholders who have been concerned that Android might be costing the company money can find something else to worry about.  Eric Schmidt indicated that the free mobile operating system is supporting itself and might at some point bring in $10 billion per year.

Dan Lyons recently published a sort of summary of Android’s history, and those two points were buried in it.  Let’s start with the matter of Android not being a money pit.  Lyons wrote, "Google CEO Eric Schmidt says Android-based phones already generate enough new advertising revenue to cover the cost of the software’s development."

As for the future, Google’s not ready to make any guarantees or official forecasts, but Schmidt was quite optimistic.

Lyons wrote, "Schmidt envisions a day when there are 1 billion Android phones in the world and notes that if Google could get just $10 from each user per year, it would be a $10 billion business.  That’s real money even for Google, whose revenues this year will be $21 billion."

Perhaps we’ll learn more when Google announces its third quarter financial results on the 14th.

In the meantime, Google shareholders should be pleased to hear that the company’s stock is heading up today, rising 2.24 percent to the Nasdaq’s 1.78 percent so far.