Google May Partner with Chinese OEM for Next Nexus Phone [Rumor]

[pc747]

Not sure why they even bother to release a Nexus anymore. Well, I know why... but at a business standpoint, they can't be making all that much money with this device. If any other company besides Google was behind it, they would have stopped making this device 2 years ago.
Compared to other flagship devices, they don't even come close IMO.
Google knows this isn't a device for the masses and that's one of the reasons they don't waste money on advertising or seem too concerned with having it readily available on release day. IDK
It's the crash test dummy of the smartphone world.

S5 tap'n

You didn't know?

The nexus is my personal device. Every year I go to Google with a list of things I want in a phone ..
Are they making money, no. But I don't think they are losing money either. Specs wise it is a rehash from the oem's current phone, they don't really advertise it so they don't have to worry about a big marketing budget unlike Samsung who spent the most out of all the oems. The ads they do run they either piggyback it off the ads for their services (ie Google play) or they run through their own ad software. So I actually think when it is all said and done they either break even or take a slight loss gambling they will make it back through them being able to use it (the nexus) as a source to push their software and get live and free testing for their software. And there are no shortage of us Android nerds begging Google to let us test their software. In fact we get angry when they are slow about it.

 

[kinfolk248]

Im telling you, if they would run some adverts they'd sell...

 

[grenefroggie]

Every smartphone OEM that ditches Android will face a tough time. Apple and Android have complete market saturation, in the US at least, on their app stores. Anyone can throw Android on a smartphone with the proper hardware drivers. You can't get Google Play without Play Services. Play services is licensed, meaning all OEMs pay Google to use it.

To build your own app store and be successful is difficult, as Microsoft has shown with Windows Phone. The issue? Enticing developers to create on your platform. This is going to be hard to change, but not impossible, as Chinese OEMs have shown, but they have the population and the Great Firewall of China.