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When Google announced that its new budget champion, the Pixel 4a, would cost ₹ 30,000, 25% less than the Pixel 3a, it felt like Google had finally learned to hit the right mark for India. The company almost checked all the right boxes: The launch was timely, coinciding with Flipkart’s Diwali extravaganza, which lasted for a month, and user interest in the phone was at its peak. It all paid off when the 4th was opened to blockbuster sales with units flying off the (virtual) shelves, and then … Google happened. The shares were sold out in a matter of minutes and Google was unable to replenish them for more than two weeks.
It could be argued that this incident is not big enough to warrant such drama, but believe it or not, the next wave of sales was even worse: It didn’t last a minute, despite arriving two weeks later, while also increasing. slightly the price of the phone. It seemed that Google had only put up for sale a few thousand units in a country of more than a billion. The shortage was such that the company had to “take out a Xiaomi” and start making flash sales.
The underlying problem is that Google couldn’t anticipate such strong demand for its surprisingly reasonably priced mid-range (frankly, we can’t say much about Pixels here). You can imagine that Google postponed the launch of 4a in India to build up enough inventory for the holiday season, but clearly that’s not the case from this perspective. It almost seems that Google deliberately wanted to miss out on a huge opportunity that was served on a silver platter. That’s when it only sells one Pixel model in the country. Overtake that!
Stock quantity of Pixel 4A flipkart has: 🤏🏻
– Dewansh Shukla (@sevezsuckla) October 29, 2020
Said with precision.
Part of the reason why Chinese smartphone companies do so well in India is that they know the local market well and are vigilant to adapt quickly to changes in overall consumer behavior. That kind of flexibility and aggressive strategy is pretty much the opposite of what we see at Google. Still, if the arrival of the Pixel 4a is a test, Google is capable of causing quite a stir: if you want, that is to say. However, what stands in your way is a lack of foresight, planning, and a proper product strategy that, taken together, further hurts your market potential, both in the short and long term. Just look at the case of the Pixel 4a: If Google had accurately predicted demand and made enough fixes, it would have sent far fewer disgruntled buyers, at a time when the Pixel range desperately needs some traction to stay relevant. And all of this is not limited to the Indian market; Even in the US, product availability is often complicated. How can we look away from the fact that the Pixel 5 could have been priced much better if it hadn’t forced the mmWave tax on everyone?
If the arrival of the Pixel 4a is a test, Google is capable of causing a stir: if you want, that is to say
I agree with Google’s decision not to bring the two most expensive pixels to the Indian market. The price of the Pixel 5 would have been too disproportionate to make sense in the Indian market (although I personally would have liked to choose one), but the 4a 5G could have offered a much-needed upgrade over the 4a without everything. the bells and whistles, and the price margin, of the 5.
In the current state of the market, the single-device approach could help establish the Pixel name outside of the tech bubble as a potential alternative to the world’s Redmis and Realmes. Google could even present its pixels as a packaged experience for those willing to pay a little more for something out of the ordinary. But who are we kidding? It’s Google! Doing any of that doesn’t seem to be high on the company’s priority list, as most of its efforts in India have focused on the lower end of the spectrum. It recently invested in Reliance Jio to make super cheap 4G and 5G phones, much like what it tried to do in the past with Android One and then again with Android Go.
Beyond Pixel phones, even other product categories suffer from Google’s shortsighted decisions. For example, none of its 4K-capable Chromecast dongles have landed in India, while Amazon was quick enough to see and seize the opportunity. It is also unknown when the new Chromecast will finally be available with Google TV; you may need some work to integrate local streamers into the new interface before launch. Other than that, Chromebooks are practically non-existent in the country, while not all Nest smart speakers are for sale here. Amazon also beats Google in bringing its Echo range to India and offers better integration with local applications and services. And above all, Amazon knows how to sell its products. Google should take notes seriously from Amazon on how to do their marketing right, especially on the hardware side.
Google often gets away with it just because it is primarily a software and advertising company, and hardware almost always takes a back seat, even though it has been making phones for years. What you need to do is pay more attention to how your products are positioned and take a tailored approach to each of your featured global markets, keeping the longer-term outlook in mind. If you’re serious about your hardware business, you need to show a little more dedication to optimizing your supply chain and handling availability issues. More importantly, Google is no longer making phone models for other OEMs to follow; you’re competing with those same big-name players, and it’s about time you started behaving like one.
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