Google will launch more Pixel smartphones at affordable prices

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Yesterday, Alphabet released its financial statistics for the fourth quarter of 2022, and at the time, Sundar Pichai, the company’s CEO, said that the OTA update process for Pixel smartphones is now enjoying strong momentum.

In fact, the management went on to say that the company planned to boost the hardware part and concentrate more on the Pixel line. Therefore, Pichai’s motto for the past several months has been “More Pixels”.

But let’s do everything in sequence. The search engine giant reported $76 billion in sales during its results call yesterday. It’s an increase of 1% over the same quarter in 2021 ($75,3 billion). With an operating income of $18.16 billion and net income of $13.62 billion (up from $20,64 billion in 2021). For instance, Alphabet reported a quarter earlier revenue of $69.1 billion and a net profit of $13.91 billion. In other words, when compared year over year, there was a minor gain in sales. And a significant fall in net income.

The 2022 Pixels are Google’s most popular mobile devices to date

In light of this, the Mountain View company reported that total Play Store sales and YouTube non-ad income (i.e., subscriptions) were $8.79 billion for the fourth quarter of 2022 compared to $8.16 billion during the same period the previous year.

Alphabet doesn’t differentiate between hardware and Play Store sales, but Pichai claimed that Pixel sales are currently gaining significant momentum. In fact, the Pixel 6a, 7 and 7 Pro are the best-selling generation of Pixels ever. And have increased their market share in every country where they were introduced.

Notably, Google increased the number of countries in which the Pixels are currently available to 17. Including this year’s launches in Denmark, the Netherlands, Norway, and Sweden. Pichai continued to respond to the news by repeating what had already been announced. Namely that they would be placing more emphasis on Pixel smartphones.

What about the Pixel Watch, which despite high hopes hasn’t had such a successful launch? Pichai, who avoided going into detail, said that the watch is part of Fitbit’s integration into their ecosystem as well as their partnership with Samsung for Wear OS and that it fits within the framework of customers looking beyond phones.

In short, it is unknown what the company’s ambitions are in this area. Although it is probably too early to draw conclusions.

More budget-friendly Pixels are coming soon

There is one other thing on which Pichai has recently made a lot of noise. And which he has brought up once more on this particular occasion. It’s true that Google plans to invest more and more in proprietary software as well as its own hardware.

Pichai claims that this is what really sets the Pixels apart from the competition. As examples of exclusive features, he cites Magic Eraser and Photo Unblur. Which are probably only the start of a feature exclusive to the company’s products.

Overall, according to Pichai, the computational portfolio is crucial and enables Google to make investments and advance innovation.

Hardware and software then, it seems that Google is playing Apple style. However, Pichai frequently insists on a third criterion, which is expenditure control. The manager has never shied away from making tough decisions or firing employees. And during the last year, he has emphasized several times the necessity for better business economy management. Pichai continued by stating that they are aiming to enhance the hardware’s economics and cost structure generally.

Given the company’s puzzling decisions, it is challenging to interpret the implications of these statements in terms of the company’s overall strategy. However, it is becoming more and more obvious that Pichai wants to concentrate on a select few products and on what they do best.