It can closely be estimated that the sales of Google’s Pixel and Pixel XL phones have totally sold a combined one million handsets, based on the number of Pixel Launcher downloads that have taken place.
The default launcher for the Pixel phones are exclusive to the Pixel devices only. Even the Pixel C tablet has a different launcher used. While the number of installs does provide an idea as to how many Pixel phones may have been sold by Google, the estimate is not all exact. This is because Play Store estimates the number of downloads of an app per unique user and not per unit. The launcher has seen an increase in popularity after being exclusively attached only to the Pixel line, with various ports being made for the launcher to be used on other devices as well. While the Google Now launcher is still available for all devices in the Play Store, it is far different from what users really want from the Pixel launcher, which is not open to download directly from the Play Store unless it is side-loaded.
While the launcher is around the one million install mark, it is too difficult determine the exact number just because there are too many discrepancies to be taken into account. Being Google’s first phone, the one million-mark can be considered quite an achievement, since the phones still got positive reviews, but were not as popular as the other flagships at the time, owing to aesthetic appeal.
Over the fourth quarter of 2016, a big chunk of the sales of the Google Pixel phones happened during the holiday season, and estimated 552,000 units to be shipped during the three-month period that made the quarter. This was predicted by the US investment bank Evercore ISI. The Google Pixel released last October. And considering that there could be one million of them sold worldwide from that quarter until now, does seem to be a possibility. Users of the Pixel, however, would not have come across the app on their Play Store library and they had to manually search through the Play Store for it to search for an update. While there are numerous possibilities of why these numbers may not add up, they can still be considered very close, and it can also mean that Google’s foray into smartphones is going well. The Pixel 2 will certainly have goals to beat.