Steve Jobs, according to his biography by Walter Isaacson, once vowed to launch a “thermonuclear war” on Google because he thought the latter’s mobile platform, Android, was a “stolen product”.
Before Android, they worked closely together. Eric Schmidt, who served as Google’s Chairman, served on Apple Inc’s board. In a turn of events, he left the board because of the conflict between the iPhone and Android.
This trend of switching between friendship and enmity has continued over the years; most recently, Bloomberg reported, quoting unnamed sources, that Apple was in talks to build Google’s Gemini artificial intelligence into iPhones.It was not a huge surprise, therefore, that with Apple getting accolades for converting India into a hub of iPhone assembly for Indian as well as global markets, Google could be looking to replicate that for its own phones.
Last week, Google took its first tentative step in that direction by finalising its mobile device assembly partners in the country. As stated publicly, it will roll out “make in India” Google Pixel phones sometime this year.
Though the Mountain View, California-based search and technology giant maintains a stoic silence, people in the know say it has tied up with two companies, Dixon Technologies and Bharat FIH (a Foxconn company), to assemble its phones, including the flagship, Pixel 8.
Yawning gap
Truth be told, Google is a bit player in the global as well as Indian mobile phones market. Last year, it sold 10 million phones worldwide. Apple Inc assembled two and half times more iPhones in India alone. If you compare global sales in volumes, Apple’s number is 22-times higher. Google’s global market share, according to Counterpoint Research, is negligible — it was 0.73 per cent in the first quarter of 2024. Apple’s was 17 per cent, the second largest after Samsung’s 20 per cent.
Even in India, Google’s phones are not a big force. But its share of the overall market is going up – in 2023, at 0.25 per cent, it was nearly double of the previous year. Counterpoint projects it will grow by 39 per cent in 2024. Neil Shah, founder of the research agency, says Google will be able to sell 600,000 to 700,000 phones in India annually once it starts making it in the country.
