Pixel 5 and others unveiled, Google’s poverty in making hardware

Hey.

Usually, corporate presentations arouse genuine interest, since new products can demonstrate the direction of market development, set one or another vector for it. Sometimes expectations are heard up front, as the corporation is huge and it seems that it should succeed in everything it touches. This is exactly what the presentation of iron from Google looked like all these years – a kind of advance that the corporation spent generously, but did not give anything in return. The creator of Android, in theory, could come up with smartphones and other devices that set a new bar for all manufacturers, bring something unusual and necessary to the market. And it all started like this: Google Photo algorithms migrated to smartphones, with one and not the best camera module, Google taught their Pixel smartphones to take pictures like no other. The maximum cost, fairly simple characteristics against the background of the flagships of other companies, excellent photography and pure Android – there were no limits to delight. Most of the rapturous ones never knew what pure Android was, but it seemed that Google couldn’t do badly. It is well known that such companies as Samsung, Huawei, Xiaomi and others do badly, since their shells “spoil” the usual Android, they are not needed at all, since they do not add anything except system brakes. Similar reasoning was common in 2016-2017, it was an advance in favor of Google.

Pixel smartphone buyers praised their camera, sometimes mentioning that they had the latest Android and updates (and your Samsung can’t do that!). But it quickly became clear that smartphones with shells can do just as well, and Pixel updates do not bring any of other people’s skills. Google’s software turned out to be one step lower, a kind of basic option for unpretentious users. And buyers are faced with a hardware defect in the Pixel – either the memory will fail and the device will turn into a dead brick, or the motherboard will live long. The defect rate in the Pixel line was several times higher than that of smartphones of the same price category, very quickly it turned into a disaster for Google, the company began to work for service maintenance.

The main problem with ironclad inside Google is ignoring reality. The people at the company truly believe that the very fact that they create something ensures that they will produce great products. Complete disregard of the market, competitors, those skills and knowledge that are needed to create at least smartphones. In many ways, this is a continuation of the corporate culture of Google, in which it is customary to “sincerely” admire your colleagues: “You are great! You have brilliant thoughts. You are the best!”. This is a form of speech that many take seriously, there are all the prerequisites for this, because a person went through a rigorous selection and ended up in the most innovative company on the planet. Many sincerely believe in such words and lose touch with reality, something similar and in the same volumes can be observed inside Microsoft, but there is a big difference – the emphasis is not so much on the greatness of employees, but on the lack of alternative opinions inside, as well as on superiority products of the company in any area, even those that are initially doomed. This is the manipulation of the perception of company employees, similar techniques are used by many corporations. When a balance is achieved between reality and perception, it works well, synergy pushes product development upward. But if the system is not balanced, as in Google, nothing good can be expected.

The company gradually reworked its fans, people bought a smartphone of the Pixel line, were stunned by the discrepancy between their expectations and reality. There were not very many of those who want to buy Pixel again, even in its native American market Pixel did not become a phenomenon, only a small share of the sales of other players.

By 2019, they came to Google with the understanding that something needed to be tweaked at the conservatory. But instead of changing the inept team, which led the direction of smartphones and other hardware to a dead end, they decided to repaint the walls, move the beds, but not change anything, according to the good old tradition. Google was losing the competition with the flagships of other companies miserably, so they decided to do something differently – to enter the middle price segment. This approach makes sense, since there were plenty of those in the middle segment who had not yet familiarized themselves with empty Android and experienced exactly the same illusions about the quality of a product from Google as their predecessors had before. A new, untouched audience for which the previous flagships were not available due to cost. In 2019, the Pixel direction took off! According to IDC, global sales soared by 52%, the company even managed to overtake OnePlus in unit sales. The main contributor to the sales growth came from the Pixel 3a, which was priced at around $ 400 in the United States. In comparison, the Pixel 3 sold worse than the Pixel 2 in terms of volume – the audience was full of flagships from Google. The situation became so critical that even before the launch of the Pixel 4, conflicts, open criticism and an unprecedented case in history arose inside Google, the company’s employees sent out an unannounced flagship to publications so that the latter would tell how bad it was. Wrecking for the good.

In 2019, Pixel sales were 7.2 million units, with a market share of 0.4 percent. In comparison, Samsung sold 296.5 million smartphones for a total market of 1.486 billion smartphones (CounterPoint Research). Pixel line-up sales are not even in the top ten in any of the fifteen markets where they operate. This “popularity” of the line also led to a restriction on the markets where it is available. Representatives of Google refuse to take on the additional burden in the form of bad products, which instantly turn into a headache, they simply need to be written off with losses.

Keeping in mind the backstory of the ironclad direction from Google, you need to understand what was shown at the “Launch at night” event and how it can be interpreted. The fact that Google has successfully favored a generous advance from ordinary people is evidenced by the fact that few people were interested in the presentation, for most it went unnoticed.

Next generation Pixel – Pixel 5, Pixel 4a 5G

Google’s strategy has remained unchanged: having failed with flagships, the company decided to offer devices that should differ from competitors in price. It is impossible to create a flagship with the same characteristics as other companies, and still achieve low cost without subsidies. Therefore, there is a kind of marketing trick here, we are offered a flagship from Google, which in fact is not this flagship. But it is proposed to compare it with the flagships, for example, with the Galaxy S20. And here the win of the Pixel 5 becomes undeniable, at least in terms of cost – $ 699 versus $ 999.