Google beat estimates today. GOOG market cap is approaching one trillion too like AAPL and AMZN. With every easy profit from advertising, Google can afford to throw billions of billions into anything.
Yup, like maybe $5 billion to the EU. Lol
What's crazy about the massive amounts of money our big techs are making is Google actually gave that entire $5B fine is own line item expense against just this quarters revenues and still managed $B's more in profit. Yes $5Billion is a lot of money but more akin to you or me having to pay for a new water heater this month as far as impact on our finances. We don't necessarily like it but can pretty easily afford it. Really hard for us normals to fathom when techs talk $B's like it's pocket change.
By "pocket change" you mean "more than 73% of everything Google earned this quarter." $7.87 billion reduced down to $2.20 billion. That's not pocket change Google misplaced. It's an obliteration of Google's business in Q2 2018. Why do you straight up lie about Google nonstop? It's as if you have a financial incentive to spread false information at every opportunity.
More importantly than the $5B fine, it means the EU will either continue to fine Google, or it will have to stop forcing Android licensees to do what it wants. Which means actually ceding control of the software it created under false pretenses of being "open," which is a greater financial problem for Google than simply paying out the majority of its earnings.
Google not being able to copy Apple's hardware business model (despite a decade of desperately trying, with the support of the Verge and people like you making great brags and then great excuses and then saying its all part of the plan for Google to be burning through hundreds of millions of dollars in failures year after year for a decade) is a pretty serious problem, but losing control of the rest of Android (that's not already lost in China) is also a problem. Google fans fantasize about Chinese companies competing against iPhone, but what happens when Chinese service providers take over outside of China? Where is Google left? How does it compete with an easy copy of search ads? It's already losing to Facebook.
So yes, it's a genius move to invest in Google at its peak valuation, when its ability to make money is at a pinnacle and it faces "no competition." Very smart indeed. Or maybe not.
Google not being able to copy Apple's hardware business model (despite a decade of desperately trying, with the support of the Verge and people like you making great brags and then great excuses and then saying its all part of the plan for Google to be burning through hundreds of millions of dollars in failures year after year for a decade) is a pretty serious problem, but losing control of the rest of Android (that's not already lost in China) is also a problem. Google fans fantasize about Chinese companies competing against iPhone, but what happens when Chinese service providers take over outside of China? Where is Google left? How does it compete with an easy copy of search ads? It's already losing to Facebook.
Where did you get the false idea that Google is trying to copy the business model of Apple? Apple is the business of selling devices, Google is in the business of selling services.
While Apple has some successful service business as well, these services are directly linked to and integrated with the devices Apple is selling. If Apple would not have a hugely successful iPhone, the interest in Apple Music would be low.
Google Search, Android and Google Cloud Platform are strategic products for Google, the Pixel hardware is not. The main issue for Pixel is not the technical part, but the marketing and sales. Google has no physical stores, no Genius Bar, no great marketing campaigns, no great designs,... things that are vital to sell physical goods to the consumer market. Only if Google would set up all of this, Google will have the intention to copy the Apple hardware business model
Google not being able to copy Apple's hardware business model (despite a decade of desperately trying, with the support of the Verge and people like you making great brags and then great excuses and then saying its all part of the plan for Google to be burning through hundreds of millions of dollars in failures year after year for a decade) is a pretty serious problem, but losing control of the rest of Android (that's not already lost in China) is also a problem. Google fans fantasize about Chinese companies competing against iPhone, but what happens when Chinese service providers take over outside of China? Where is Google left? How does it compete with an easy copy of search ads? It's already losing to Facebook.
Where did you get the false idea that Google is trying to copy the business model of Apple? Apple is the business of selling devices, Google is in the business of selling services.
While Apple has some successful service business as well, these services are directly linked to and integrated with the devices Apple is selling. If Apple would not have a hugely successful iPhone, the interest in Apple Music would be low.
Google Search, Android and Google Cloud Platform are strategic products for Google, the Pixel hardware is not. The main issue for Pixel is not the technical part, but the marketing and sales. Google has no physical stores, no Genius Bar, no great marketing campaigns, no great designs,... things that are vital to sell physical goods to the consumer market. Only if Google would set up all of this, Google will have the intention to copy the Apple hardware business model
Thanks. You saved me some typing. It's a tad silly for bloggers to grab a false premise off the shelf, use that as a storyline, and then act offended when other folks notice and call them out. Should be obvious to editorial writers that there's a major flaw in the logic when a story has to be pinched, pulled, and twisted to make any sense at all, and yet put so much effort into doing so anyway.
Seems far too common for some writers to take ill-advised extension classes from the Quixote School of Journalism.
Google will keep iterating and will slowly gain share. This is typical Google MO. They took years and years before Chrome became a thing and now completely dominates. Google alway comes late and when people think the segment is dead and wins the space.
Laptops the same way. Google Chromebooks in 2018 grew 50% yoy while Mac sales peaked in 2015 and Windows years ago. Only one growing is Chromeboiks but took years. Same with K12 for Google and now over 64% share in the US.
Even search took a while as well as Gmail. The only over night success that comes to mind is the Google WiFi. It has taken 18 months for the Google home to over take the Alexa devices.
Guess the other they will lead from the beginning and would guess keep it is self driving cars. But in most cases Google comes late and takes years to domintate.
Chrome as a browser is dominant more for IE's failings and the average joe's recognition of the google brand vs the "unknowns" of firefox and opera. GMail I've found is either loved by techy types who utilise Gdocs and everything google does, or hated by the average user on the street as frustrating to use and impossible to fix if anything goes wrong - forgotten your password? just give up now. I'm not sure who's buying all these Chromebooks, I see them on offer all the time and have been tempted many times by the price alone but I've yet to see a single one in use IRL in my limited scope of the north east of Scotland and primarily oil & gas sector based companies.
Google beat estimates today. GOOG market cap is approaching one trillion too like AAPL and AMZN. With every easy profit from advertising, Google can afford to throw billions of billions into anything.
Yup, like maybe $5 billion to the EU. Lol
What's crazy about the massive amounts of money our big techs are making is Google actually gave that entire $5B fine is own line item expense against just this quarters revenues and still managed $B's more in profit. Yes $5Billion is a lot of money but more akin to you or me having to pay for a new water heater this month as far as impact on our finances. We don't necessarily like it but can pretty easily afford it. Really hard for us normals to fathom when techs talk $B's like it's pocket change.
By "pocket change" you mean "more than 73% of everything Google earned this quarter."
Yup. All written off in just one quarter with $Billions to spare. One. So yeah, comparatively no more $impactful to Google than you having to replace your TV. Pocket change so to speak, tho it takes darn big pockets.
Now if you want to argue that the bigger issue is Google being required to do some unbundling I would 100% agree with you. No one knows for sure how that might play. I don't see a huge number of OEM's jumping ship, nor a significant segment of users saying gosh I really wish I could use Bing instead of Chrome, but it would be wrong to assume that there won't be some numbers cost to Google.
As for the story itself, seriously Daniel, it never became kinda obvious that there was a flaw in the logic when you had to put so much effort in pulling and pinching in order to put something together that was at least kinda plausible? I see newbie writers do this all the time, make some silly connection, surely realizing the bad connections early on, yet put so much effort into completing it anyway. If someone didn't already know you as the seasoned writer you are they could be forgiven if they thought the author of this story was one of those newbies trying to get their plate on the table by serving stale marshmallows instead of rare meat. You're far better than that IMHO, and that's meant as a compliment.
Google will keep iterating and will slowly gain share. This is typical Google MO. They took years and years before Chrome became a thing and now completely dominates. Google alway comes late and when people think the segment is dead and wins the space.
Laptops the same way. Google Chromebooks in 2018 grew 50% yoy while Mac sales peaked in 2015 and Windows years ago. Only one growing is Chromeboiks but took years. Same with K12 for Google and now over 64% share in the US.
Even search took a while as well as Gmail. The only over night success that comes to mind is the Google WiFi. It has taken 18 months for the Google home to over take the Alexa devices.
Guess the other they will lead from the beginning and would guess keep it is self driving cars. But in most cases Google comes late and takes years to domintate.
You know that Google doesn't sell the VAST majority of Chromebook units into education, right? Google produced a high end Chromebook that had few sales. The low cost Chromebooks in education are sold by PC vendors. Google makes no revenue off these sales...though it is of course useful at obtaining young new users for their services.
Google beat estimates today. GOOG market cap is approaching one trillion too like AAPL and AMZN. With every easy profit from advertising, Google can afford to throw billions of billions into anything.
Yup, like maybe $5 billion to the EU. Lol
What's crazy about the massive amounts of money our big techs are making is Google actually gave that entire $5B fine is own line item expense against just this quarters revenues and still managed $B's more in profit. Yes $5Billion is a lot of money but more akin to you or me having to pay for a new water heater this month as far as impact on our finances. We don't necessarily like it but can pretty easily afford it. Really hard for us normals to fathom when techs talk $B's like it's pocket change.
So yes, it's a genius move to invest in Google at its peak valuation, when its ability to make money is at a pinnacle and it faces "no competition." Very smart indeed. Or maybe not.
...Why do you straight up lie about Google nonstop?
https://csimarket.com/stocks/GOOG-Return-on-Investment-ROI.html Does the ROI really look that bad? Nope. Apple may be the better investment between the two (or not, I don't swim in the stock market anyway) if you can afford only one but who's lost money investing a few thousand in Alphabet? No one.
And the claim about me "straight-up lying non-stop"? Why would you resort to personal stuff like that, especially as you're unable to offer even one single example of me doing so on AI. Ever. Consider that your challenge for the day. Find some examples, surely easy enough since it's "non-stop". Enjoy the search.
I'd love to think I'll see your apology when you can't find even one instance of "lying" but I don't expect it. If you've really run out of logical counterarguments and all that's left is ad-homs why would you bother replying? You think it looks good?
I'm not going to get into an insult slugfest with you as I'm not nearly as experienced nor driven to do so. It was juvenile stuff when I was in junior high and didn't morph into an admirable adult trait when we all grew up.
Google beat estimates today. GOOG market cap is approaching one trillion too like AAPL and AMZN. With every easy profit from advertising, Google can afford to throw billions of billions into anything.
Yup, like maybe $5 billion to the EU. Lol
What's crazy about the massive amounts of money our big techs are making is Google actually gave that entire $5B fine is own line item expense against just this quarters revenues and still managed $B's more in profit. Yes $5Billion is a lot of money but more akin to you or me having to pay for a new water heater this month as far as impact on our finances. We don't necessarily like it but can pretty easily afford it. Really hard for us normals to fathom when techs talk $B's like it's pocket change.
By "pocket change" you mean "more than 73% of everything Google earned this quarter." $7.87 billion reduced down to $2.20 billion. That's not pocket change Google misplaced. It's an obliteration of Google's business in Q2 2018. Why do you straight up lie about Google nonstop? It's as if you have a financial incentive to spread false information at every opportunity.
Yeah it makes you wonder if there’s something going on with GoogleGuy.
Google not being able to copy Apple's hardware business model (despite a decade of desperately trying, with the support of the Verge and people like you making great brags and then great excuses and then saying its all part of the plan for Google to be burning through hundreds of millions of dollars in failures year after year for a decade) is a pretty serious problem, but losing control of the rest of Android (that's not already lost in China) is also a problem. Google fans fantasize about Chinese companies competing against iPhone, but what happens when Chinese service providers take over outside of China? Where is Google left? How does it compete with an easy copy of search ads? It's already losing to Facebook.
Where did you get the false idea that Google is trying to copy the business model of Apple? Apple is the business of selling devices, Google is in the business of selling services.
Maybe from the fact that they buy hardware companies like Nest, Motorola, and HTC’s design group to, you know, sell hardware at the high-end? Just a guess?
Nexuses that came before them, have not been complete failures — particularly if you understand that the goal of Nexus phones was to lend a hand to Android manufacturers, not sell in large numbers. Their lack of retail success has in no way contributed to the death or misfortune of any of the companies that made them. Shockingly, this nuance has been lost on AppleInsider.
Ah yes, the “but they never intended to sell well or make money!” trope. Yyyyeah, you’re not in business, are you? Nobody goes into business on a product hoping to help out their other partner-competitors and not do well. It’s a good apologist story, but not how it works in real life.
Google beat estimates today. GOOG market cap is approaching one trillion too like AAPL and AMZN. With every easy profit from advertising, Google can afford to throw billions of billions into anything.
Yup, like maybe $5 billion to the EU. Lol
What's crazy about the massive amounts of money our big techs are making is Google actually gave that entire $5B fine is own line item expense against just this quarters revenues and still managed $B's more in profit. Yes $5Billion is a lot of money but more akin to you or me having to pay for a new water heater this month as far as impact on our finances. We don't necessarily like it but can pretty easily afford it. Really hard for us normals to fathom when techs talk $B's like it's pocket change.
By "pocket change" you mean "more than 73% of everything Google earned this quarter."
Yup. All written off in just one quarter with $Billions to spare. One. So yeah, comparatively no more $impactful to Google than you having to replace your TV. Pocket change so to speak, tho it takes darn big pockets.
In what world does buying a TV cost you 73% of your last three months of income?
In numbers current as of last month, Android owns 78% of the worldwide market. That number pretty much speaks for itself.
Errrnt, nope. That's just the nonsense of worshipping at the church of market share. Android isn't a company or even a product, it's a splintered code base out in the wild. The vast majority of its market share is provided by cheap chinese knockoffs that nobody even cares about.
Apple owns all the profit of the sector. It sucks it all up. It's feasting on the lion's share of meat while the rest of the android hyenas fight amongst themselves for scraps of leather and bone. "But there are more hyenas than lions!" Uhh yeah, so what??
In numbers current as of last month, Android owns 78% of the worldwide market. That number pretty much speaks for itself.
Errrnt, nope. That's just the nonsense of worshipping at the church of market share. Android isn't a company or even a product, it's a splintered code base out in the wild. The vast majority of its market share is provided by cheap chinese knockoffs that nobody even cares about.
Apple owns all the profit of the sector. It sucks it all up. It's feasting on the lion's share of meat while the rest of the android hyenas fight amongst themselves for scraps of leather and bone. "But there are more hyenas than lions!" Uhh yeah, so what??
Android is a product. No doubt about it.
iOS is also splintered, just not as much.
The vast majority of market share is not taken by your so-called Chinese knock-offs.
Gosh I hope you don’t read the paper. What do you do when you hit th editorial section?
Generally ignore it.
it bothers me here because it lowers the reputation of the site as “just an isheep” site. I get that at other sites. Professional writing should be professional.
The reason Google fails is because they see no value in the hardware, this company is run by a bunch of software types and they see hardware only a means to the end like using a pencil to write on paper.
I don’t think that’s true. The Pixel and Nexus phones have consistently had the best or near-best hardware of the whole Android ecosystem, surpassed only (occasionally) by Samsung. Nest hardware happens to be great too.
But despite being reasonably good at software, Android itself sucks. Java turned out to be a lousy platform upon which to build mobile devices and it’s gotten bad enough that they’re starting over with a clean slate (Fuchsia).
And their consumer experience also sucks. Lousy marketing, and no equivalent to the Apple Stores and Genius Bars. Going back to my story about my physical therapist earlier: If he were having these problems with an iPhone, I’d tell him to just walk down the street to the Apple Store (it's eight streets away). There's no Genius Bar for Nexus phones; his emails to Google support go into a black hole.
Ironically, I think hardware is the only problem Android phones don’t have.
Trust me they have lots of hardware issues, and Google does not respect the value that Hardware has in the overall strategy. If google really saw value in hardware they would not allow outside companies design their hardware.
...and thus the HTC engineering group acquisition. By the time the 2019 models roll around (considering 24 month leads) it should be a Google engineered and Google designed smartphone top to bottom.
Do you really believe HTC engineers are of the caliber of those employed by Apple. Apple engineers are not cut and paste engineers. I am familiar with HTC engineering efforts and they okay when you turn over a design to them and they just have to figure out how to build it but making something from start to finish is totally another story. Motorola has some of the best engineers in the cell phone industry and Google could not turn a product out with their engineering staff. Again is comes down to Google lack the hardware engineering and system design knowledge it requires to make a phone work well. They think hardware should be able to run any software.
HTC’s problems are mostly of their own making. Year after year, they came out with terrible flagship phones. Despite the bad reviews, things didn’t really get any better. I assume Google paid them something to make their phones, as they did others. Google’s phones and tablets have never sold in substantial numbers.
they aren’t now either. It’s hard to know why. They aren’t bad phones, but except for having a very good camera on the top Pixel models, unadorned Android, and a better OS update life, they barely register. My thoughts are that despite the very good reviews, and despite Google fans on places like ARS, the phones are too expensive, even the older, less expensive models before the Pixels. Even though we read, and hear, from some android owners, particularly on the web, about why they but Android for “openness” which doesn’t really exist, other than for installing ROMs and the like, most people buy Android products because of lower price.
wjile iPhones do go on sale, and are offered for free with a 2 year signup, by far, most iPhones sell at full, or almost full, price. But even the most popular Android flagship phones, the Samsung Galaxy S series, is more often than not sold at a “Buy one, get one for 50% off.”, or “Buy one and get one free”. That makes a Galaxy’s actual price closer to $350-450 than to their “suggested list price”. Other Android models are cheaper. And despite that they don’t get OS updates, many Android owners keep their phone until it comes apart. I even see that with my Android owning friends, most of whom have old android phones.
smaller companies like HTC have it hard because they are always at the rear of the parts suppliers lists. They even complained about that. They also get less favorable pricing, which makes profits more difficult. It could also influence the model changes each year, if they have problems paying for more expensive, and possibly, harder to get parts.
The reason Google fails is because they see no value in the hardware, this company is run by a bunch of software types and they see hardware only a means to the end like using a pencil to write on paper.
I don’t think that’s true. The Pixel and Nexus phones have consistently had the best or near-best hardware of the whole Android ecosystem, surpassed only (occasionally) by Samsung. Nest hardware happens to be great too.
But despite being reasonably good at software, Android itself sucks. Java turned out to be a lousy platform upon which to build mobile devices and it’s gotten bad enough that they’re starting over with a clean slate (Fuchsia).
And their consumer experience also sucks. Lousy marketing, and no equivalent to the Apple Stores and Genius Bars. Going back to my story about my physical therapist earlier: If he were having these problems with an iPhone, I’d tell him to just walk down the street to the Apple Store (it's eight streets away). There's no Genius Bar for Nexus phones; his emails to Google support go into a black hole.
Ironically, I think hardware is the only problem Android phones don’t have.
Trust me they have lots of hardware issues, and Google does not respect the value that Hardware has in the overall strategy. If google really saw value in hardware they would not allow outside companies design their hardware.
...and thus the HTC engineering group acquisition. By the time the 2019 models roll around (considering 24 month leads) it should be a Google engineered and Google designed smartphone top to bottom.
Do you really believe HTC engineers are of the caliber of those employed by Apple. Apple engineers are not cut and paste engineers. I am familiar with HTC engineering efforts and they okay when you turn over a design to them and they just have to figure out how to build it but making something from start to finish is totally another story. Motorola has some of the best engineers in the cell phone industry and Google could not turn a product out with their engineering staff. Again is comes down to Google lack the hardware engineering and system design knowledge it requires to make a phone work well. They think hardware should be able to run any software.
Well then you are obviously intimately involved with HTC engineering and can speak with more authority than I could. I'll defer to your expertise on the subject. Still answers your criteria for proving Google "saw the value in hardware" by now designing their own hardware with their own design engineers, and reportedly using the same contractors as Apple does to build 'em.
Since there's zero chance they could acqui-hire the Apple iPhone engineering team...
Comments
By "pocket change" you mean "more than 73% of everything Google earned this quarter." $7.87 billion reduced down to $2.20 billion. That's not pocket change Google misplaced. It's an obliteration of Google's business in Q2 2018. Why do you straight up lie about Google nonstop? It's as if you have a financial incentive to spread false information at every opportunity.
More importantly than the $5B fine, it means the EU will either continue to fine Google, or it will have to stop forcing Android licensees to do what it wants. Which means actually ceding control of the software it created under false pretenses of being "open," which is a greater financial problem for Google than simply paying out the majority of its earnings.
Google not being able to copy Apple's hardware business model (despite a decade of desperately trying, with the support of the Verge and people like you making great brags and then great excuses and then saying its all part of the plan for Google to be burning through hundreds of millions of dollars in failures year after year for a decade) is a pretty serious problem, but losing control of the rest of Android (that's not already lost in China) is also a problem. Google fans fantasize about Chinese companies competing against iPhone, but what happens when Chinese service providers take over outside of China? Where is Google left? How does it compete with an easy copy of search ads? It's already losing to Facebook.
So yes, it's a genius move to invest in Google at its peak valuation, when its ability to make money is at a pinnacle and it faces "no competition." Very smart indeed. Or maybe not.
Seems far too common for some writers to take ill-advised extension classes from the Quixote School of Journalism.
GMail I've found is either loved by techy types who utilise Gdocs and everything google does, or hated by the average user on the street as frustrating to use and impossible to fix if anything goes wrong - forgotten your password? just give up now.
I'm not sure who's buying all these Chromebooks, I see them on offer all the time and have been tempted many times by the price alone but I've yet to see a single one in use IRL in my limited scope of the north east of Scotland and primarily oil & gas sector based companies.
Now if you want to argue that the bigger issue is Google being required to do some unbundling I would 100% agree with you. No one knows for sure how that might play. I don't see a huge number of OEM's jumping ship, nor a significant segment of users saying gosh I really wish I could use Bing instead of Chrome, but it would be wrong to assume that there won't be some numbers cost to Google.
As for the story itself, seriously Daniel, it never became kinda obvious that there was a flaw in the logic when you had to put so much effort in pulling and pinching in order to put something together that was at least kinda plausible? I see newbie writers do this all the time, make some silly connection, surely realizing the bad connections early on, yet put so much effort into completing it anyway. If someone didn't already know you as the seasoned writer you are they could be forgiven if they thought the author of this story was one of those newbies trying to get their plate on the table by serving stale marshmallows instead of rare meat. You're far better than that IMHO, and that's meant as a compliment.
You know that Google doesn't sell the VAST majority of Chromebook units into education, right? Google produced a high end Chromebook that had few sales. The low cost Chromebooks in education are sold by PC vendors. Google makes no revenue off these sales...though it is of course useful at obtaining young new users for their services.
Does the ROI really look that bad? Nope. Apple may be the better investment between the two (or not, I don't swim in the stock market anyway) if you can afford only one but who's lost money investing a few thousand in Alphabet? No one.
And the claim about me "straight-up lying non-stop"? Why would you resort to personal stuff like that, especially as you're unable to offer even one single example of me doing so on AI. Ever. Consider that your challenge for the day. Find some examples, surely easy enough since it's "non-stop". Enjoy the search.
I'd love to think I'll see your apology when you can't find even one instance of "lying" but I don't expect it. If you've really run out of logical counterarguments and all that's left is ad-homs why would you bother replying? You think it looks good?
I'm not going to get into an insult slugfest with you as I'm not nearly as experienced nor driven to do so. It was juvenile stuff when I was in junior high and didn't morph into an admirable adult trait when we all grew up.
Errrnt, nope. That's just the nonsense of worshipping at the church of market share. Android isn't a company or even a product, it's a splintered code base out in the wild. The vast majority of its market share is provided by cheap chinese knockoffs that nobody even cares about.
Apple owns all the profit of the sector. It sucks it all up. It's feasting on the lion's share of meat while the rest of the android hyenas fight amongst themselves for scraps of leather and bone. "But there are more hyenas than lions!" Uhh yeah, so what??
iOS is also splintered, just not as much.
The vast majority of market share is not taken by your so-called Chinese knock-offs.
https://newzoo.com/insights/articles/growth-outside-china-pushes-use-chinese-smartphones-47-yoy/
Apple doesn't own all the profit.
it bothers me here because it lowers the reputation of the site as “just an isheep” site. I get that at other sites. Professional writing should be professional.
Do you really believe HTC engineers are of the caliber of those employed by Apple. Apple engineers are not cut and paste engineers. I am familiar with HTC engineering efforts and they okay when you turn over a design to them and they just have to figure out how to build it but making something from start to finish is totally another story. Motorola has some of the best engineers in the cell phone industry and Google could not turn a product out with their engineering staff. Again is comes down to Google lack the hardware engineering and system design knowledge it requires to make a phone work well. They think hardware should be able to run any software.
they aren’t now either. It’s hard to know why. They aren’t bad phones, but except for having a very good camera on the top Pixel models, unadorned Android, and a better OS update life, they barely register. My thoughts are that despite the very good reviews, and despite Google fans on places like ARS, the phones are too expensive, even the older, less expensive models before the Pixels. Even though we read, and hear, from some android owners, particularly on the web, about why they but Android for “openness” which doesn’t really exist, other than for installing ROMs and the like, most people buy Android products because of lower price.
wjile iPhones do go on sale, and are offered for free with a 2 year signup, by far, most iPhones sell at full, or almost full, price. But even the most popular Android flagship phones, the Samsung Galaxy S series, is more often than not sold at a “Buy one, get one for 50% off.”, or “Buy one and get one free”. That makes a Galaxy’s actual price closer to $350-450 than to their “suggested list price”. Other Android models are cheaper. And despite that they don’t get OS updates, many Android owners keep their phone until it comes apart. I even see that with my Android owning friends, most of whom have old android phones.
smaller companies like HTC have it hard because they are always at the rear of the parts suppliers lists. They even complained about that. They also get less favorable pricing, which makes profits more difficult. It could also influence the model changes each year, if they have problems paying for more expensive, and possibly, harder to get parts.
Still answers your criteria for proving Google "saw the value in hardware" by now designing their own hardware with their own design engineers, and reportedly using the same contractors as Apple does to build 'em.
Since there's zero chance they could acqui-hire the Apple iPhone engineering team...