Google’s lifetime Pixel phone sales are dwarfed by the number of phones sold by Samsung in a single year, according to a reputable source.
On the day of Google’s glitzy Pixel 7 smartphone announcement, the company will be feeling justifiably proud of its impact on the industry. It created Android, of course, while last year’s Pixel 6 and Pixel 6 Pro were its biggest phone launches yet.
Bloomberg tech editor Vlad Savov has shared a snippet of Pixel sales data that he received from market intelligence company IDC, and it might prove sobering.
In the six years Google has been selling its own phones, it has managed to shift 27.6 million units. That’s a tenth of the number of phones Samsung sold in 2021 alone.
Of course, Samsung has been selling smartphones for a lot longer than Google. It sounds strange when talking about one of the biggest tech brands in the world, but Samsung is a more established name in this particular industry, and it has a sales presence in far more countries as a result.
There’s also the fact that Samsung sells way more smartphone models, from high-end flights of fancy like the foldable Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 4 to the cheap and cheerful Samsung Galaxy A12, and many more in between. Google, by contrast, sells two or three phone models a year.
Even so, it’s a worthwhile (albeit not official) statistic to keep in mind. Google’s Pixel phones might be greeted with all the glitz and glamour of a Samsung and Apple release, but reliable sales data suggests that they’re way more niche.