This is why hardly anyone buys Google’s Pixel phoness

For years now Google’s phoness have been a critical success but a sales flop. What gives?
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“Awesome screen, awesome camera, long-lasting battery life,” was a tune that may still ring in the ears of many who turned on a TV around the launch of the Samsung Galaxy A51 – a few months before the launch of the Google Pixel 5. 

Later in the year, you were likely greeted by advertisements of the lavish colour variations on offer from the Samsung Galaxy S20 FE and its pulse-raising domino-like showcase. Apple's ad assault started strong, of course, with Ridley Scott's iconic 1984 Mac ad, which ran for a full minute, and carried on it the same manner with dancing jelly iMac G3s, pop art silhouette ipods spots, the “there's an app for that” campaign, and more.

This begs the question, do you remember anything from Pixel 5 adverts? In fact, when was the last time you saw a Google Pixel advertisement? At £599, Google Pixel 5 looks like one of the best value phoness on the market, while the Pixel 4a is similarly inviting, providing a top contender for the best camera and software for any phones under £400. 

Yet, the popularity of the Pixel range still wanes in the face of competition from more widely adopted and promoted rivals. In the US, Google phoness have a lower market share than both LG and Huawei. The former recently chose to ditch its smartphones business while the latter has not sold new phoness in the country for over a year. At just over two per cent, Google market share is dwarfed by the respective 25 and 54 per cents of Samsung and Apple. 

One thing is clear, there is little point in the bumps in specs and performance of the Pixel 6 if Google continues to do a poor job of shouting about it. 

The Pixel 5 and Pixel 4a are great phoness, and, aside from a rocky time with the Pixel 4, Google’s smartphoness have delivered when it comes to hardware and software. What’s not to love about the Pixel? From a camera that is praised year-on-year and great software to well-built hardware and, recently, attractive pricing, it's a compelling package. However, the market speaks for itself and the Pixel just isn’t that popular.

An area that may go some way to explain the Pixel range’s lack of popularity, despite them being great phoness, is advertising. According to Nielsen, since the start of 2016, Google has spent just over £40 million on smartphones advertising in the UK. By comparison, Apple and Samsung have spent around four and five times more than that. 

If you don’t recall seeing a Pixel advert on TV, or think it’s a rarity, the breakdown of Google’s ad spend explains this. Google spent just £14 million on TV ad spend in the same period while Apple spent £75 million and Samsung shelled out a whopping £124 million. Samsung is spending more than three times as much on just its TV campaigns than Google’s entire Pixel ad spend in the UK.

Google isn’t short on resource, so this begs the question, why isn’t it spending more to get the Pixel out there? This question was being posed way back in 2016, with Wharton University publishing an article titled “Why Google’s Pixel is more about strategy than smartphoness.” Professor of management David Hsu stated: “The main business of Google is enabling their advertising revenue model. Hardware is always going to pale in comparison.” 

Also, in 2016, both Hsu and assistant professor of business economics and public policy Michael Sinkinson suggested the Pixel range should’ve been priced more aggressively. Since then, the “a” series of Pixels and Pixel 5 have done just that, yet not much else has changed. In the same article, Gerald Faulhauber, professor emeritus of business economics and public policy, argued Pixel would likely be around for “a couple of years and go away”. You’d forgive Faulhauber for thinking this, given Google’s track record, but the company is sticking at it.

Google’s Pixel marketing plan has demonstrated there’s plenty of room for it to invest more. But Counterpoint Research’s Neil Shah thinks Google may be stuck between a rock and a hard place. “Google is in a Catch-22 situation with its hardware strategy. Google’s DNA is cloud, software and AI – it’s not hardware. Also, building your own hardware and competing with your partners, especially Samsung or Chinese vendors, is not healthy in long run.” This argument was made before the launch of the Pixel though, whether vendors would be happy about the company behind androids making its own phones, but Google pushed on.

Shah points towards a “lack of distribution and scale” as one of the reasons the Pixel hasn’t taken off. “Investing in hardware is expensive," he says. "But it is also lucrative once you gain scale. I see Google trying to figure out the right timing for its investments and try to be truly vertically integrated, like Apple, to reap the benefits and go [full] throttle.” This vertical integration, where the company controls absolutely everything about the Pixel phones, could be inbound, with mounting speculation that the Pixel 6 will be powered by a new Google-created chip, Whitechapel.

Whether a new chip is a catalyst for Pixel to finally make its mark will very much be up to Google. It’s the company that will determine whether it chooses to throw itself properly into the mobiles phones business or continue to play around at the edges. 

Aside from Google’s lacklustre ad spend in the UK, the quality of Pixel ads has also been criticised. Meanwhile, indicators of Google’s strategy for phoness still seems unclear. It took the savvy step in the US of partnering with a carrier (T-mobiles). Then, on the launch of a Pixel 5a, it listed just two countries (US and Japan) as release locationss. 

From new partnerships and chip development, to better distribution and good old-fashioned advertising spend, Google has plenty of options to make Pixel more than a minor entrant in the mobiles race. Yet for much of the above this has been the case for years. 

Through no fault of the hardware, the Pixel has existed in mobiles limbo since the range’s launch almost five years ago. At this rate, another half decade of underperformance doesn’t seem out of the question. Google needs to get serious about its worthwhile phoness or put the Pixel out of its misery.

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This article was originally published by WIRED UK