Google’s Pixel phones had their best quarter ever

Google’s line of Pixel phones have generally been one of our favorite Android devices since the first Pixel arrived in 2016 — but they’ve never been big sellers. While Google still doesn’t measure up to Apple and Samsung, the company says the Pixel just had its best sales quarter ever.

On Alphabet’s earnings call today, CEO Sundar Pichai addressed the company’s hardware performance. “In the fourth quarter, we set an all-time quarterly sales record for the Pixel,” he said. “This was despite an extremely challenging supply chain environment.” All of Google’s competitors have had similar problems, but it’s reasonable to think that the company could have sold more phones if it weren’t for the supply chain.

Specifically, Pichai noted that the Pixel 6 was proving popular with carrier customers and partners. In our estimation, the Pixel 6 and 6 Pro are probably the best Pixel phones Google has released in years, and it looks like these sales records back that up. Unfortunately, Google doesn’t release sales figures, but it’s not alone in this regard.

Pixel sales are grouped into a category called simply “other”, which covers all of Google’s hardware (among other things). “Other” revenue improved 22% year-over-year to $8.2 billion in the quarter. That’s a small portion of Google’s overall revenue — the company made $75.3 billion in overall revenue in the fourth quarter of last year, up 32% year-over-year. This speaks more to the health of the company’s massive search ad business.

In other financial news, Alphabet is dividing your stock. It’s a 20-to-1 split, which means that one share of Alphabet will soon be worth 20 shares much cheaper. Given that the company’s share price ended the day at $2,757.57, this split means the shares will be much more affordable. Apple and Google have split their shares before, but a 20-to-1 split is pretty unusual.

We’re tuned in to Alphabet’s earnings call and will update this post with anything else we hear.