Google Doubled TV Ad Spend For Pixel

Estimates from various sources indicate that debut quarter shipments for Google’s pixel smartphone exceeded 500,000.

According to a survey of Verizon stores by telecommunications firm Wave7 as reported by Bloomberg, Google’s Pixel smartphone accounted for some 12.3 percent of all phone activation in the U.S., with some stores even selling out of the product.

Using the Wave7 data, Investment bank Evercore ISI was able to estimate that Google shipped somewhere around 552,000 Pixel phones in the U.S in the fourth quarter and estimated that the total revenue from Pixel sales stateside totaled somewhere around $386 million in the fourth quarter of 2016.

With these numbers, it appears that the Pixel phone outsold the Evercore estimated initial sales of Google’s smart speaker Google Home by at least 2,000 units.

But Google didn’t just sell phones in the U.S. or in at physical stores. Google sold the Pixel outside the U.S. with other carriers through its online store — so it’s likely, said Bloomberg, that total Pixel sales in the fourth quarter were likely higher than Evercore’s estimate. Other research reportedly estimates that Google may have doubled its television advertising budget over the holiday season to spotlight Pixel and Google Home.

Estimates from Morgan Stanley project that Google’s debut Pixel smartphone will generate $3.8 billion in revenue for the company in 2017. The global financial firm expects that Google will sell between 5 million and 6 million Pixel phones in 2017. Additionally, the firm estimates that Google will have sold close to 3 million Pixels in the last three months of 2016 — generating an additional $2 billion since its launch in early October of this year. The Pixel phones retail between $649 and $869.

Alphabet, Google’s parent company, is scheduled to report its fourth-quarter earnings on Jan. 26. After that, the full picture of Pixel’s revenue will become clear.