Excerpt from Google’s blog post:
Today we see an even greater opportunity to make Pixel smartphones available to more people in India, and are very excited to announce our plan to manufacture Pixel smartphones in India. We intend to start with the Pixel 8, and will partner with international and domestic manufacturers to produce Pixel smartphones locally. We expect these devices to start to roll out in 2024, joining India’s “Make in India” initiative.
Is this even a decision that Google gets to make lol? As far as I know Google has no manufacturing capabilities of their own and contacts other companies to make their hardware.
Yep, Foxconn is currently making the phones for Google, and according to this article some candidates in India are Lava International Ltd, Dixon Technologies India, and Bharat FIH (whose parent company is Foxconn).
OP since you seem in the know - can you clarify the meaning of the Google post?
Is this saying that ALL Pixel phones for worldwide distribution will be made in India going forward? Or is it just saying that Google will make Pixels sold to the Indian market in India?
I don’t know more than you on this but while in the blog post they say they’ll start with the Pixel 8, I don’t see why they wouldn’t do that for future Pixel lines too if it ends up working for them with the Pixel 8 line. I don’t think they’ll abandon their manufacturing in China though, I think they’ll use the new India supply chain to diversify a bit and probably address the Indian market with phones that are a bit cheaper (it could be that they get some tax advantages there + Indians could buy it without any import tax which should mean a lower price).
The wording is that they’ll be making them all there. Been a push for years across many industries to pull out of China, about damn time! India’s on the rise for sure, half our pharmaceuticals have been mfgd there for years now.
Oh, so they are changing suppliers then? IDK why I just assumed their current supplier was moving manufacturing to India. If so I wonder what the track record is of these other companies and wether quality will slip or maybe these will be made specifically for the Indian market and won’t be exported.
I think it’s just a move to diversify their supply chain, reduce the China risk (for example in case of a new Covid lockdown in China) and probably make the phones a bit cheaper for the Indian market.
Youre asking of Google gets to decide where their phone is manufactured? Of course they do.
They get to decide who manufacturers their phones and some of those suppliers have factories in different countries, so technically, you’re right. But, those are limited options.