For all the hate (and love) it’s apparently selling well
The Google Pixel 6 wasn’t just our favorite phone of last year — it might have been yours too. According to Google’s recent earnings call, it broke sales records last quarter (Q4 2021), thanks to the Pixel 6.
The full quote transcribed from Sundar Pichai’s call during today’s earnings report is just below:
“In Q4, we set all all-time quarterly sales record for Pixel. This came in spite of an extremely challenging supply-chain environment. The response from Pixel 6 from our customers and carrier partners was incredibly positive. And AI is making Pixel even more helpful…”
The discussion then wound onto the features Pichai attributed the Pixel 6’s success to, including the new real-time translation tools.
Precise numbers weren’t shared (yet), and Google’s segmented results don’t break out hardware into their own category — it’s all just part of “Google Services,” which includes Android, Chrome, Google Maps, Search, Google Play, and YouTube all added up. However, that segment is seriously up, with over 69 (nice) billion dollars of revenue for last quarter, up from 52.8 in 2020, and an operating income of almost 26 billion (up from 19 in Q4 2020). Since all Pixels launch in the fall, around October or November, that also means this “all-time quarterly sales record” is measured up against every other flagship Pixel launch.
It’s not clear if the Pixel 6 is the best-selling Pixel of all time just yet. Prior models get 12+ months of retail lifetime, and the Pixel 6 has only been available since last October. But if the trend continues, it sounds like it could be on track to be the best-selling Pixel of all time — not that Google is likely to share specific numbers. This is also in spite of the limited markets the Pixel 6 is available in compared to some prior models.
Today’s claims constitute a stark change from how things were just a few years ago when Google’s struggling sales invited comparisons to Microsoft’s failed smartphone efforts. Last October, it was reported that Google expected to double its smartphone sales in 2021, and it nearly doubled its order for Pixel 6 units compared to 2020 on the hope that would happen. On day one, the company started running out of stock even with that preparation, proving popular.
We’ve reached out to Google for more information on the off-chance the company is willing to share more numbers or specific confirmation when it comes to sales landmarks. In the meantime, it’s clearly a success story for the company, issues and software development difficulties be damned.
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