With the Pixel 7, its newest entry in a cutthroat segment of personal electronics where it has typically been a minor player, Google is seeking to step up its smartphone game.
This week, the gadget was revealed in Brooklyn, where company reps emphasised its top-notch capabilities that can turn off background noise on a phone.
The Pixel was a latecomer to the portable phone trend when it was first unveiled in 2016, arriving over a decade after Apple’s iPhone and seven years after Samsung’s Galaxy model, the two devices that currently dominate the market.
Only 2.7 million Google phones were shipped worldwide in 2020, compared to more than 200 million units each for the Samsung and Apple models.
The Google phone’s restricted availability—the Pixel 5 was available in less than 10 countries—as the tech giant concentrated its smartphone investment on software rather than its own hardware is a contributing factor in those pitiful sales numbers.
Although Google’s phones are on pace with the best-selling models in terms of quality, Runar Bjrhovde, a research analyst at market research firm Canalys, claimed that Google “has frequently lacked backing from Google” in terms of marketing.
Instead, Google has concentrated on enhancing Android, which was introduced in 2008 and was used in more than 80% of the smartphones sold in the first half of 2022, according to Canalys.
Growing Android is still Google’s primary goal, according to Maurice Klaehne of Counterpoint Research, who added that “Google undoubtedly has the potential and resources to become a significant smartphone player, but that is not Pixel’s plan.”
However, he noted that “Selling more Pixel smartphones would mean stealing market share from other Android competitors, and this would go against Pixel’s purpose.”
Bjrhovde observed that Google has taken a little turn with the most recent iteration of the phone, delivering a product that is compatible with wearables, headphones, and other products made by the firm.
