Google Unfazed By Android One’s Lackluster Sales

With the huge population that emerging markets usually have – India, China, Indonesia, the African region – one would think that by creating cheap handsets that they would be selling like hotcakes. Unfortunately for Google and their Android One efforts, things haven’t really been going so well, especially in India where less than a million units were sold.

However speaking in an interview with the Economic Times (via Android Central), Google’s VP of product management Caesar Sengupta was quoted as saying, “Many a times, we do stuff that is not about volumes but it’s about advancing a point of view. Our goal here is to make sure that our end users are adapting to mobile experience and the next billion users have a good and compelling mobile experience.”

Sengupta went on to state that internally at Google, they are pleased with how Android One is progressing and that they are taking the current situation and learning from it, promising that the next batch of devices will be better. Apparently one of the reasons why Android One wasn’t doing as well was due to a lack of offline availability, and this is an area that Google will be looking into.

When asked if Google would consider discontinuing the Android One program due to its lackluster sales, Sengupta said, “No, we’re not backing away from the program. We remain pretty committed to it. […] We think of ourselves as more of a catalyst to the ecosystem. Android One is a very small part of Android, which is also what Google pushes.”

Tyler Lee
Categories: Cellphones
Tags: Android, android one, Google