Pixel: Google had its best year with Pixel phone sales, here’s how many units the company sold

Google launched the Pixel8 lineup last week at the ‘Made by Google’ event. The smartphone series includes two devices — Pixel 8 and Pixel 8 Pro. The tech giant launched the first-ever Pixel back in 2016, yet it remains a minor player in the smartphone market. However, with the recent launch of the Pixel 8 series, the company have now reportedly shipped over 40 million phones.
According to an X post shared by IDC VP Francisco Jeronimo, Google Pixel marked significant growth in the past year. He reported that the company has shipped almost 38 million phones between 2016 and 2023. This has been the entire lifecycle of the Pixel lineup so far, Jeronimo notes. He also mentioned that sales have been growing in “double digits” in recent years.

How Pixel stands against its rivals
The numbers put up by Pixels are not massive as its rivals are way ahead of them. For example, Apple has already shipped 42.5 million iPhones during the second quarter of 2023, Statista reports.
Jeronimo also pointed out that Google had doubled Pixel shipments in the lineup’s first year, which totalled a little less than four million units. By 2019, Google had picked things up and started moving 7.2 million units in that year.

As of 2022, Google was approaching the 30 million milestone, The company sold 27.6 million units before the launch of Pixel 7. This means that Google was successful in shipping nearly 10 million Pixel phones over the last 12 months. This might have been the best year for Pixel yet, and the company is set to break its last year’s record.
Over the last year, Google has been actively gaining traction in the US as well as Japan. Earlier this year, a Counterpoint Q2 report showed that Pixel was gaining ground while other Android players saw a decline.
In July, Japan reportedly became Google’s biggest market for Pixel phones. The report also noted that Pixel is actively taking market share from the iPhone in the country. Google was also the only smartphone brand that didn’t see its shipments shrink year-over-year in North America.