Google has just announced their quarterly financial results for Q1 2015, and while the overall picture is good, there’s a bit of bad new for Nexus devices. Google refers to the money it earns from the Play Store and Google Store as “other revenues”, and while overall “other revenues” has increased to $1.8 billion, up 23% year-on-year, when compared with last quarter, this revenue stream has actually fallen by 3%. In the earnings call, Google CFO Patrick Pichette attributed this decline to the fact that Nexus devices aren’t selling well anymore, in particular theNexus 6, which hasn’t been the financial success that the Nexus 5 and Nexus 7 were.
You can kind of understand why this is the case – the Nexus 5 ($349) and Nexus 7 ($249) were significantly cheaper than their successors, the Nexus 6 ($649) and Nexus 9 ($399), and it’s obvious that the almost double-the-cost Nexus 6 is a bit of a tough ask for what is essentially an enthusiast’s device. Having said that, it’s unlikely that Google will bat an eyelid as the Nexus line, as we all know, is less about being a commercial success but getting quality devices into the hands of developers and enthusiasts – though I doubt they’d complain if it actually made money too. We’ll have to see if Google changes their strategy with the next Nexus smartphone and goes back to a cheaper device.