The smartphone was unveiled in New York on Tuesday and officially goes on sale on October 24, but it won’t be available in India.
###
“We decided not to make Pixel 4 available in India,” a Google (GOOGL) spokesperson said in a statement to CNN Business.
###
That’s reportedly because one of the Pixel 4’s key components, a Soli radar chip that enables facial recognition and gesture controls, operates on a frequency that India doesn’t allow companies to use. Google was unable to obtain a license from Indian authorities to use the 60 Gigahertz frequency, according to several media reports.
###
India’s Department of Telecommunications did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Google said the company’s devices are made available in countries “based on a variety of factors, including local trends and product features,” but it declined to comment on why the Pixel 4 was not being launched in India.
###
“We remain committed to our current Pixel phones and look forward to bringing future Pixel devices to India,” the company spokesperson said.
###
India is not the only country where Motion Sense — the feature that allows users to control the Pixel 4 through hand gestures — has hit roadblocks. The feature is also not yet available in Japan, Google said on its support page, but will roll out there by spring 2020.
###
However, Japan is one of a dozen countries where the Pixel 4 will go on sale, a list that also includes the United Kingdom, Australia, Canada, Germany, France, Spain, Italy, Ireland, Singapore and Taiwan.
###
India is a huge prize for smartphone makers, with more than 400 million users and a potential market of several hundred million more who have yet to get connected to the internet.
###
But the Indian market is dominated by Chinese players like Xiaomi and BBK Electronics, which together made up nearly 60% of smartphone sales last quarter, and global leader Samsung, which accounted for another 25%.
###
Google’s smartphones, with their high price tag (the Pixel 4 starts at $799), are out of reach for the average Indian, who earns less than $2,000 a year, according to the latest International Labor Organization figures.
###
The company accounts for less than 1% of India’s smartphone market, according to Tarun Pathak of Counterpoint Research.
###
As in Japan, it could have launched the Pixel 4 in India without some features. Apple (AAPL) has taken a similar approach in the past, when it started selling the Apple Watch without its heart rate monitor last year. Apple finally added the feature to its Indian watches about a month ago.
###
But Google doesn’t have enough of a presence in India to justify reworking its devices for the country, Pathak said.
###
Google still sells its older Pixel models in the country, including the Pixel 3, the Pixel 3 XL, and the Pixel 3a.
###
“This should not be seen as an exit,” Pathak added. “It’s still a lucrative market for Google… it’s not like everything is lost because they couldn’t launch one series.”
Click Here: pinko shop cheap