Huawei executive confirms why the company passed on building the Pixel

After the success with the Nexus 6P in 2015, many assumed that Huawei would jump on the chance to build the next Nexus device, which later turned out to be the Pixel. However, as previous reports have stated, Huawei skipped that chance due to conflicts with Google, specifically with the branding.

One of Google’s big selling points with the Pixel is that it’s a “Phone by Google.” Anywhere you look on the Pixel, you won’t find anything to argue that Google built this phone from the ground up, but at this point we know it was built by HTC.

According to Huawei’s VP of the company’s Consumer Business Group, Colin Giles, that was a problem for Huawei (via WinFuture), as we reported on over a month ago. Huawei passed on building the Pixel because Google wasn’t going to be pushing or even mentioning Huawei’s relationship with the phone. Huawei’s goal was to gain attention in the US market, and the company had no desire to build phones for anyone else without getting something out of the partnership.

So that’s it. We may never know what Google had in store with Huawei for that Pixel, but we do know that the company has other plans in mind for that partnership. As we reported, Google is working on a tablet with Huawei likely to preview Google’s new OS, Andromeda.