Googletomakepixelphonesinindia Google Cloud to help farmers reap benefits of ONDC, power super app for citizen’s services

Googlewillstartmanufacturing its premium smartphone Pixelinindia, withthefirstmade in India phones expected to roll out in 2024, the company announced Thursday. Google will start with producing the Pixel 8 in the country, which was launched earlier this month.

Indoingso, ithastakenaleaf outof itscompetitorapple, who has been manufacturing smartphones in India since 2017 and hasfoundgreatsuccessdoingso, becomingtheflagbearerforthe government’sproductionlinked incentive (PLI) scheme.

Atitsannualgoogleforindia tech event, the company said thatitwillpartnerwithinternational and domestic manufacturers to produce Pixel smartphones locally. Domestic contract manufacturer Dixon Technologies and Foxconn are said to be the frontrunners to manufacture the Pixel in India. Foxconn manufactures iphones in India whereas Dixon makes phones for Reliance Jio, Motorola, and Nokia. Xiaomi.

Google has found it difficult to break into the smartphone segment globally, and would be hopingthatitsdecisiontolocally manufacture the Pixel in India will give it a sizable pie of the country’s growing premium smartphone segment, which is dominated by Apple and

Samsung.

Aspercounterpointresearch, eventhoughoverallsmartphone shipmentsdeclinedinindiainthe second quarter of 2023 declined by 3 per cent, the premium smartphone segment presented a different picture, growing 112 per cent year-on-year in Q2 to contributearecord17percentto theoverallshipments.

Aspercmr, Pixelhasconsistently held less than a 0.2 per centmarketshareinindiaforthe past five years.

Android is the most used mobile operating system in India, but a number of its users buy phones from the budget end, asegmentwheresamsung and Chinese players like Oppo, Vivo and Xiaomi rule the roost.

Speaking on the sidelines of

PTI the event, Union IT Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw said that he has asked Google to further deepenitselectronicsmanufacturing push in India, by producingitstensorchip– whichpowers the latest generation Pixel phones– atasemiconductorfab in the country in the next three years. Currently, India does not have an operational fab.

Theministeralsosaidthathe has urged Google to start producingthepixelfoldinthecountry next. Rick Osterloh, senior vicepresident, devicesandservicesatgooglesaid,“indiaisapriority market for Pixel smartphones, andwe’recommittedto bringing the best of our hardware and underlying built-in software capabilities to people across the country”.

TO HELP farmers benefit from ONDC, Google Cloud is partneringwithsigncatchtohelpfarmers producers organisations (FPOS) build catalogues and reach out to merchants across the country. Farmers across the country will be able to use the power of Google Cloud’s generative AI and language capabilitieswithjustafewclicksandfor the first time gain the ability to transact at scale, Managing Director Bikram Singh Bedi told The Indian Express.

As part of Google For India, Google Cloud also announced it isworkingwithaxismyindiato “democratiseinformationoncitizens services” with a super app called the ‘A App’ that uses Google Cloud’s scalable and secure infrastructure. “We are looking to impact over 250 millionindianhouseholdswhichreally translates to impacting the livesofoverabillionindiansand making sure they are able to have easier lives,” Bedi said, underlining how this signals India moving forward as a society. “Generative AI technology is now capable of two-way communication in 13 Indian languages, and will be a crucial bridgebetweenthegovernment andthecorporatesocialservices as well as citizens”.

One of the use cases of the appwillbetoshowayushmann Bharat hospital near a certain user. It will also curate information for similar such queries users might have.

Thecompanyisalsopartnering with Bhashini and the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology to use generative AI and language models to make government servicesmore"languageresponsive”. Bedi said Google Cloud is launchingacentreof excellence on generative AI and language. Bhashini teams will essentially leverage Google Cloud Generative AI’S secure data architectures, Genaiappbuilding tools and our foundation modelstoessentiallybuildresponsiblegenerativeaimodelsthatare trained on Government of India datasets, and Bhashini’s language translation technology.

Union IT Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw with (right) Sanjay Gupta, vice president and country head of Google India, and Rick Osterloh, senior vice president for devices and services of Google, in New Delhi on Thursday.