While most smartphone brands are seeing their sales slump, Google’s Pixel phones are rising in popularity in some of the world’s most important markets.
Japan is a huge success story for Google and the Pixel team. It appears that most of these devices are from the budget Pixel 6a and 7a series, which would likely mean that Google has successfully captured the middle of the Japanese smartphone market.” – Anshel Sag, Moor Insights & Strategy’s principal mobile analyst
The chief reason behind the decline in the iPhone’s popularity is Japan’s weakening currency, which has made Apple’s smartphones more expensive in the country. It also doesn’t help that recent iPhones don’t exactly offer any must-have features. Also working against the appeal of the iPhone are reduced carrier subsidies.
And while some might be tempted to play down Google’s success in Japan by claiming that it performed better during the June quarter purely due to the weakening yen, that’s not entirely true.
While the overall market was in shambles, the premium segment seemed immune to the factors that impacted other categories, such as poor economic conditions, longer replacement cycles, and lower carrier subsidies. That’s despite the fact that the average selling price of North American phones increased from $663 in Q2 2022 to $738 in Q2 2023.
