Google’s Pixel sales have been a fraction of Apple’s, but another phone maker designing more of its own components is a bad sign for suppliers. The deal will help Google wade deeper into designing its own consumer hardware and special-purpose chips—like Apple. Qualcomm Inc. provides the bulk of these chips to Android phone makers, and Osterloh said Google will keep working with the supplier for the foreseeable future. The HTC deal is also bad news for manufacturers of phones based on Google’s Android operating system. The Pixel phone sold 1.5 million phones in 2017, up from 1 million the year before, according to Counterpoint Research.

Source: Mint January 30, 2018 09:33 UTC