Pixel 3a Arrival Sure Helped Google Sell Some Pixel Phones

During Google’s Q1 2019 earnings call in April, Google had to admit that they didn’t sell as many Pixel 3 phones as they had hoped. Instead of growth in their third year of Pixel phone releases, Q1 showed lower year-on-year sales, which is a wrong-direction type of trend.

For Q2, Google has a much more positive message to share around Pixel sales and it’s likely all thanks to the Pixel 3a and Pixel 3a XL that were introduced in May. Well, the arrival of those combined with wider distribution to more carrier and retail partners certainly helped a lot.

During today’s Q2 earnings call, Google CEO Sundar Pichai said that “overall Pixel unit sales in Q2 grew more than 2x year over year.” Again, this is the quarter immediately following a quarter where Google admitted that Pixel sales were lower.

Now, there are a couple of things to keep in mind. For one, new phone introductions always mean a boost in sales, so since Google didn’t release a new phone in Q2 of last year, it’s not that surprising that this year would show a big boost. Additionally, Google didn’t exactly break out the number of phones they sold in Q2 2018 compared to this quarter. All we know is that they sold more and for Google, that’s probably OK news.

You can listen to Google’s Q2 2019 earnings call here.