Google admits trouble selling expensive Pixels, but it’s got a cheaper one coming soon

 Google admits trouble selling expensive Pixels, but it’s got a cheaper one coming soon

Google has a simple, yet subtle, reason for its anticipated push into the midrange smartphone market: there’s too much competition in the high-end one.Next month, on the first day of its I/O developer conference, Google is expected to show off its new, cheaper Pixel 3a and 3a XL. And on an earnings call with reporters today, Ruth Porat, the chief financial officer of Google parent company Alphabet, said that industry-wide pressure on high-end phones led to fewer Pixel sales last quarter compared to this time a year ago. Porat specifically cited “some of the recent pressures in the premium smartphone market.”

While Porat didn’t specify what those pressures are, we can assume she’s referring to increased competition from Apple and Samsung, as well as high prices driving down consumer demand and leading smartphone owners to hang onto their devices for longer than the annual update cycles to which the mobile industry has tethered itself.

In a separate part of the call, Google CEO Sundar Pichai was pressed on whether investors should be concerned that the company’s hardware efforts were doing little to impact its overall revenue, which is still largely dependent on its slowing ad business. One analyst openly wondered on the call whether the Pixel line was representative of Microsoft’s failed smartphone business.