“With the Pixel 7, we put Google in a box. And now let’s get out of the smartphone “
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«From the beginning the idea was to put Google in a box». The speaker is Nanda Ramachandran, vice president, for eight years and Google and head of the strategies of the Pixel business division, the smartphone of Moutain View. We interviewed him a few hours before the Made by Googe event which saw the debut in Italy of the new mobile phones of the Pixel family and the presentation of a series of new devices such as the first Google smart Watch, and the Pixel tablet that will arrive in the next months.
“When we thought of Pixel – explains the manager – the idea was precisely to offer all our experience and what we have learned with the search engine and artificial intelligence in a box”. It means dedicated hardware to exploit the potential of Android, the operating system made in Google that today moves nine out of ten smartphones. In this sense, the Big G model plays the same game as Apple that designs applications directly with the development of the device thus offering superior performance. Last year, the new Tensor processor entirely designed by Mountain View debuted. And with the Pixel 7 the chip has been completely redesigned and updated. However, the importance of smartphones in their budgets is not the same.
Google’s commercial strategy
According to data from Canalys, Google’s Pixels reached 2% of the North American market in the second quarter of 2022. Apple today overtook Samsung and has a 52% share, Big G was starting from almost nothing, and its growth, year over year, it is 230%. But compared to Apple, smartphones are a small item in Google’s balance sheet.
«The mobile phone market is going through a difficult time. The uncertainty on the market due to price growth on the demand side and the slowdown in the supply of microchips (semiconductor crisis) on the supply side weighed on the distribution of the product for all players. For us too, but now the situation has improved and despite the negative signs we are optimistic that the market will restart ».
Hardware-software integration
Optimistic also because for Google the game seems to have wider boundaries than those of traditional smartphone manufacturers. “We too think that the mobile phone is central to people’s lives and to their access to the internet and to the services of the digital economy, but we don’t believe it is the only one. Our product ecosystem has expanded over time, with more and more user entry points to the Google experience. And this helps us to improve our products ». An example, explains the manager, is precisely in the progress we have made with the Google Tensor processor. «Today, if you ask a user which is the most appreciated feature, the duration will be answered, that is the battery – observes Nanda Ramachandran -. But I also add security. For the first time we have incorporated into our Titan M2 hardware a security solution that is an international standard used to make identity more secure on Sims, credit cards and chips. It means that we introduce the strictest guidelines that protect banks, telecom operators and governments today. And then there is artificial intelligence: every year progress is made. Particularly interesting on Pixel 7 is the integration between Google’s translation services, the connection with the earphones and the use of algorithms for managing calls ».
The AI roadmap
However, if Google’s roadmap in consumer electronics is conceivable on the technological front, the strategy on the commercial front is less clear. In part, as has happened to Microsoft in the past on the smartphone front, the direction of these great technology giants is not always clear. Google like Microsoft are giants who do not live off consumer electronics but on cloud computing, services and advertising in the case of Big G. For both, the commercial strategy on products is not always linear. In fact, Google’s choice not to sell their smartphone on our territory raised a lot of perplexity. Italy, for example, despite being certainly an attractive market in Europe in terms of smartphone demand. «It was 2020 – replies the manager – and we were at the beginning of the pandemic. We decided not to bring the Pixel 5 for two reasons: the lack of 5G infrastructure and an objective lack of product due to the crisis in the supply chain. Both of these problems have already been solved since the launch of the Pixel 6 family. Indeed, starting this year the Italian market will be increasingly important ». Also for this reason, as far as we know, talks are underway with the telephone operators to sell the Pixels through subscription. Currently, in fact, the Pixels are only found on Amazon or in the Google Stores. For large-scale distribution, the managers say, it will be necessary to wait for more products.
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