One potentially problematic aspect about Samsung’s rise as the world’s top Android vendor is that it has literally crowded out smaller competitors and is the only company in the world that consistently turns a profit selling Android phones. Sundar Pichai, who heads both the Android and Chrome OS divisions at Google, told the D11 conference on Thursday that he’s not concerned about the overwhelming power that Samsung wields in the Android ecosystem and said that Google and Samsung have a “symbiotic relationship” that benefits both companies.
“We owe Samsung a lot,” Pichai explained. “They owe us a lot, too.”
But just because Samsung has been getting all the attention in the Android world lately doesn’t mean that Google has forgotten about its own Motorola Mobility division, which plans to launch its new flagship Moto X this fall. Pichai said he wasn’t that concerned that the company has been bleeding money over the past few quarters because Google is playing a “long game” with its investment in the smartphone manufacturer. He noted that YouTube used to be a notorious money loser as well but that now it’s an integral part of Google’s online services. Pichai predicted that Motorola’s upcoming product releases would start them on a “journey to success” that would eventually lead them back to profitability.
