A survey held by Morgan Stanley shows that in the US during Q4, 300,000 Android phones were sold while Apple sold 1.75 million iPhones. That’s about 6 iPhones to 1 Android.

Now while Google still has to play catch up, the above figures are only based on two of its mobile manufacturing partners – HTC & T-Mobile. Soon enough we should see Motorola, LG, Sony Ericsson et al.

Surprising figures? Not really. iPhone always had an edge over Google’s acquired Android. Best network operator (AT&T rated 1, while T-Mobile rated at 4), better user experience, better multimedia and even better software.

And software is the key point here – the infamous App Store. That’s Apple’s additional revenue model. For Google? It’s not about selling their Android platform – no no no, it’s about making it easier to get it’s users to use Google services to then see (and hopefully click) on their ads.

Does that mean once we have more manufacturers using Android, we may see a sizable increase in revenue for Google? Unknown…

Don’t forget Google can still be accessed on the iPhone. I mean, I use them when I do a web search on my phone, but do I click on their ads? Well, not really.

So where does Microsoft fit in all this? Recently, they have announced that along with the next version of Windows Mobile, they will also release – guess what – an app store!

It’s called the “SkyMarket”. And along with SkyMarket, Microsoft will also launch “SkyBox” (similar to MobileMe to sync emails, contacts, and other data) and “SkyLine” – similar to SkyBox, but for small businesses.

Now, I’m assuming that the SkyBox will be free (or peanuts) unless they plan to make it work for non Windows devices – like a Nokia N95, iPhone or Android for that matter.

However, all this has been done – it’s not cutting edge. What we’re seeing is a company following the footpaths of the successful ones.

Still, Apple is holding it’s ground pretty well.