The Google Pixel 6 lineup is not making its way to the country, but why? Patriot takes a look

Launched in October 2021, the Google Pixel, much like its predecessors, is yet to make its way into the Indian market. However, just like its predecessors the Pixel 6 will not be coming to the Indian market and users will either have to maneuver the ordeal of getting their devices shipped in from other countries or will have to shell out exorbitant sums to get their hands on Google’s latest hardware offering. 

So why doesn’t Google bring its smartphone hardware to the Indian market?

Since 2015, when the last Nexus phone was launched in India, Google has been somewhat unreliable — when it comes to hardware launches — and though the original Pixel phones, up until the Pixel 3 were launched in the Indian market the company has shied away from competing in the already cutthroat smartphone market. 

In a statement to Gadgets360, Google revealed that the reason for not launching the Pixel 6 series in India was due to a supply crunch saying, “Due to a variety of factors including global demand-supply issues, we are not able to make our products available in all markets. We remain committed to our current Pixel phones and look forward to bringing future Pixel devices to more countries in the future”.

As of now the Google Pixel 6 series is officially available in just a handful of markets including those in the USA, Canada, Australia, Taiwan, Japan, Germany and France. 

Interestingly though, one needs to take a step back and see what the Pixel phones are all about before understanding why they are no longer launched in India. 

For starters, the Pixel lineup is not your average Android smartphone. It is the flagbearer of what Android smartphones can and should be, thanks to Google ownership of Android. And though the argument can be made that Android is open source and every other smartphone brand is just pushing out their own iteration of the OS, one needs to keep in mind that Google with all its technological prowess is still the company with the ability to make Android’s performance a force to reckon with. 

Now even as we look at Google’s ability to ensure that Android performs at its absolute best, the fact that the Indian market without any help from the Pixel lineup is dominated by Android smartphones, a humongous 95% handsets in India run on Android. 

In such a scenario, it seems unlikely that Google would be interested in pushing and polishing their latest and greatest for India. 

Loss for Indian users

The latest Google Pixel is unlike any of its predecessors, including the Nexus series. And what sets it apart from? The Tensor processing unit. 

Just like Apple, Google has decided to take matters into their own hands, they have finally developed their own chipset which is designed specifically keeping their smartphones in mind. What this does is to bring Pixel back from being an Android enthusiast phone to a smartphone that can run circles around most of its competition. And it is only going to get better. With the new Google assist features being made to work on the hardware — thanks to the Tensor chip — the Pixel might just be the smartest of all the smartphones on the planet. 

And with time as more and more data is fed into the system, its performance is only going to improve. Therefore it will not be wrong to say that Indian smartphones lovers are losing out not only by using some amazing hardware but also some amazing software features. 

But not all is lost. 

Despite what many must be thinking, getting a Pixel in India is next to impossible, not all is lost. Even though the Pixel series 6 has not and will not be launched in India, people can purchase the smartphone on e-commerce sites like Amazon. But there is a catch, the high price point. Selling for around 69000, the Pixel due to the high price is competing with the likes of the Apple 13 and Samsung Galaxy S21, both of which have their established dedicated buyers. The other would be to purchase the smartphone from the international market and have it shipped to India, which may cost even more and might not provide hardware warranty or carrier support. 

 In such a scenario, shelling out so much on a smartphone lineup which has at times failed to impress may seem like a foolish idea. However, for the Pixel enthusiast that may not be deterrent enough and we hope Google will see sense in bringing its Pixel lineup to India soon.