The Pixel 6 sets record as Google’s best selling phone ever

It’s no secret that Google’s latest mobile flagship device has made a big splash in the smartphone market. Just do a quick search for “best android phones of 2021” and you will be greeted by list after list ranking the Pixel 6/6 Pro at or very near number one and that’s a big deal for Google and its parent company Alphabet. While Alphabet doesn’t disclose sales numbers for specific hardware, the tech giant’s 2021 Q4 earnings report revealed a sharp increase of revenue in the “other” category which consists mostly of Google’s hardware offerings.

Roughly 8.2 billion USD, the “other” category saw an impressive 22% YoY increase from 2020 and that is in the face of supply chain shortages and a global pandemic. This isn’t the only area in that Alphabet flourished in 2021. The company’s main revenue source, advertising, saw healthy growth with a 32% increase in revenue and an overall company-wide increase of the same 32%. Back to the hardware part of the equation, CEO Sundar Pichai stated in the quarterly earnings call that this was the best quarter for Pixel in company history.

In Q4, we set an all time quarterly sales record for Pixel. This came in spite of an extremely challenging supply chain environment.

Sundar Pichai, CEO, Alphabet

Thanks, in part, to the COVID-19 pandemic, there are a lot of factors to consider when trying to quantify the popularity of Google’s latest smartphone. That said, there’s no denying the fact that the Pixel 6 line is selling and that Google may be well on its way to solidifying itself as a bona fide smartphone maker that can actually lead the industry with cutting-edge hardware and the latest offerings from the company’s own Android operating system.

This news came in conjunction with the word that Alphabet’s board voted to approve a stock split that will take place during a snapshot on July 1, 2022. While not unusual, Alphabet will be splitting its stock with a ratio of 20:1 which is a bit out of the ordinary but it will make the barrier of entry much lower for investors interested in getting a piece of the Alphabet pie. At the time of publication, GOOG stock was trading for 2,981.09. When it splits, you will have 20 shares at roughly $149/share. (Not financial advice. Just basic math.)

Anyway, I am extremely excited about what Google is doing in the smartphone space. I hope that the company continues to focus efforts on creating new iterations of the in-house Tensor SoC for future Pixel phones as well as other Google-made hardware. It is time that the maker of Android had a phone line that’s worthy of being number one and it really feels as if that time has arrived.