Google shipped more smartphones in 2019 than OnePlus

Amazingly enough, it turns out that Google's smartphone business isn't doing all that bad, at least compared to where your expectations may have been.

According to a new report from IDC, the search giant had a very good year in 2019, shipping 7.2 million smartphones, recording 52% growth compared to 2018. Not just that, but it overtook OnePlus in terms of shipments last year. That said, both companies are still pretty far from entering the top 10 of smartphone makers worldwide, based on shipments.

. @Google continues to expand the #Pixel portfolio and sales are growing. In 2019 shipments grew 52% YoY to reach the highest volume ever, with strong performances in the USA, Western Europe and Japan. It now ships more units than @oneplus but it is still far from reaching Top10 pic.twitter.com/qY66isF9vN

— Francisco Jeronimo (@fjeronimo) June 9, 2020

This may be surprising news, given past reports saying the Pixel 3a and Pixel 4 sold fewer units in their first two quarters of availability than the Pixel 3 did in the same time frame. However, last year the company also expanded the Pixel sales to three new markets (and at this rate, its smartphone business will have a global footprint in a few centuries), and while the launch numbers for the phones released in 2019 were indeed weaker than those of the Pixel 3, it looks like they then stayed steadier.

Google's numbers are still a far cry from those of its biggest competitors, but at least its smartphone sales seem to be growing, and not by a small margin. Let's see what will happen this year, with the constantly delayed Pixel 4a, and the Pixel 5 generation rumored to eschew a flagship chipset.