Event ‘Made by Google‘ introduced us to the new Pixel 7 and Pixel 7 Pro held yesterday, as well as the Pixel Watch and (not quite) Pixel Tablet.

Google’s new hardware offerings update and expand the company’s hardware ecosystem, but it seems like Google wants to be more in the background, even though it can become Apple’s direct competitor in this area. Google’s ambition is caffeine-free: It’s like they don’t want to sell too muchAnd we don’t know exactly why.

We want to sell more than ever but not too much please

Google director James Park has been talking about the Pixel Watch for 10 minutes. A few minutes passed after 17:00 Spanish peninsula time and it was time to talk about price and availability. That’s when we learned: Pixel Watch would not initially be sold in Spain: I would only do it in a few countries.

With the Pixel Tablet we’ve known for months, things were even worse: Rose Yao, another of Google’s product managers, didn’t even make a statement after revealing its design and some additional details—but little or nothing about its specs. a price and just stated this device will be sold in 2023.

Google seems to bet “everything” on the Pixel 7 and Pixel 7 Pro. Citations are important because even in this case Google’s ambition very limited.

Sources close to the company reveal that Google wants these to be produced. more than 8 million of these mobile phonesand its goal is to sell twice as many smartphones in 2023 as it did in 2022.

Wanting to sell twice as much is fine, but when we put this sales data into perspective, things lose their shine. What announced Bloomberg editor Vlad Savov has sold 27.6 million units since Google launched the Pixel in 2016.

This is a ridiculous number and represents One-tenth of the phones Samsung sold in 2021“Google needs 60 years to sell as many phones as Samsung sells in one.”

When it comes to Apple, the comparisons are more disgusting: In 2018, IDC stated that Google sold too many cell phones in a year. Like what Apple sells in a week.

The consultant showed sales data from different generations and revealed how neither model managed to sell. more than 10 million units. Another interesting fact: As long as there are two sizes, smaller models have always sold better.

Some will say that the comparison with Samsung is unfair: after all, this manufacturer never stop releasing models market and its production and distribution is huge. The same goes for other big players in the Android market: Xiaomi, Oppo or Vivo, which are successful in Spain, but even more relevant in Asia, are also machine guns. Throw rhythms are insane.

Fear of upsetting their partner

For many (and me included) natural comparison is between Google and Apple: both release very few devices per year and surround them with an ecosystem of products and services where mobile is (or should be) the center of that ecosystem.

Savov explained In the United States, Google trusts Samsung too much. LG has fallen, HTC has disappeared, and Chinese brands are “not welcome.” This effort with the Pixel 7 seems to seek to alleviate the situation and offer Samsung an alternative (not a competitor).

This is an interesting message, mainly because America is a very different country. In this smartphone thing: Apple’s share has recently surpassed Android’s, something very difficult to achieve in the rest of the world (at least in the short term). At Google, they want to contribute grains of sand so Samsung can get some help.

But definitely there seems to be something about not wanting to compete with partners and partners. It seems dangerous for Google to make a better cell phone than its partners, and surely many of you remember the great Nexus 4 and Nexus 5, which were full-fledged bargain phones. The only problem was getting them, because Google hardly ever puts the units up for sale. Maybe so as not to offend their partners? Who knows.

The case is reminiscent of Microsoft with the Surface family, it’s true. A few years ago, Michael S. Shultz, an executive at Microsoft, said that these devices They sell “better than necessary”. He added that the goal is not necessarily to be a hardware manufacturer, but to help our partners be as successful as possible.

Surfaces like pixels are more of a template than is possible with a good combination of hardware and software. Here Google (and Microsoft) show guidelines and experiment, but they prefer not to do too well (or so it seems) so that producers with partners don’t get mad at them.

Experiments are better with soda

In fact, yesterday’s Google event made that clear. The Pixel 7 and Pixel 7 Pro are promising, but the Tensor G2 chip still doesn’t want to get into any competition with Apple’s iPhone chips. Even worse Pixel Watch before, Powered by 2018 Exynos 9110something that is definitely a bad option when it comes to being more efficient.

Global sales (in millions) of Apple smartphones from 2010 to 2022. Source: Statista

The fact that this watch is also sold in only a few countries seems to position it as an experiment rather than a product that Google wants to sell. a “let’s see how it goes, let’s see if people buy”. In fact, it’s very reminiscent of the first Google Pixels, which were sold very modestly because Google really seemed to prefer not to sell any more.

Things are even worse with the Pixel Tablet: The device doesn’t look particularly advanced, either in design or features. It’s actually known to be run by Tensor G1 – not even G2 – so when it comes out in 2023 we’ll have a product that arrives late on stage and maybe bad. What does Google want? There are too many half measures here. I want so much and I can’t. We just don’t understand.

The unknowns are many and the truth is It’s still surprising that Google isn’t leveraging its enormous capacity. It could do this to encourage a division that would bring a lot of joy and place it much more clearly as Apple’s competitor in the hardware space.

But the Pixels are still there. Without bothering anyone too much. The 8 million they want to produce in 2023 is (almost) nothing. Apple sells this many iPhones every two weeks. And so, Google, you can’t compete. You don’t want it, it seems.