Google sold less than 30 million Pixel phones to date, since the first one in 2016
To be more accurate, according to the provided data, Google sold 27.6 million units. That may not seem like a huge number considering that the first Pixel phones arrived 6 years ago, in 2016. It is not surprising, though. Google never went all in with its smartphone sales, and the availability of Pixel phones throughout the years wasn’t great. The company’s devices were officially available only in select markets. The availability did expand a bit over the years, but not by much. As Mishaal Rahman said: “the Pixel is Android’s testbed, so even if it’s not a smashing success it’ll have its place”. That is very true. The Pixel phones are more consumer-oriented than Nexus devices were, but they’re still kind of test units for Android… at least partially. He also added that if these were the sales numbers of any other OEM after all those years, the brand probably wouldn’t exist anymore. That is also probably true. Still, the Pixel 6 smartphones are the fastest-selling Pixel phones to date. Back in April, Sundar Pichai, Google’s CEO, said that himself. He did not share the exact numbers, though, which is a shame, but he did add that the “Pixel 6 is a huge step forward for the Pixel portfolio”.
Comparing Google’s sales to Samsung’s makes no sense
If you compare Pixel’s sales numbers to Samsung’s, it’s not even a competition, and nobody really expects it to be. If Google pushed its phones in as many markets as Samsung does, and did that for years, things may shift. That would probably upset Samsung, though, quite a bit, and Samsung is basically the flagship brand for Android. Just to compare, as Vlad Savov pointed out, Google’s overall sales since 2016 make up 1/10 of Samsung’s 2021 sales. So, as you can see, that’s a huge difference. It is an unsurprising difference, though.
