Google has no plans to make own smartphones right now: Pichai

Google has worked with a range of partners to build Nexus phones, with the company controlling the software and some hardware elements, while leaving manufacturing to its partners, who have included LG, HTC and Huawei, among others

India-born Google CEO Sunder Pichai has said the digital giant has no plans to make its own smartphones right now and will continue to collaborate with its original equipment manufacturers (OEMs), according to media reports.

"Our plan is still to work with OEMs to make phones..Nexus, we are investing more effort into them, you'll see us put more thought into Nexus devices, there are categories beyond phones, we'll be opinionated where we need to be to push the category forward," Sunder Pichai said in an interview to Vox Media's Code Conference on Wednesday.

The company will "thoughtfully add more features" to Android on Nexus phones going forward, the Tech Crunch reported.

"Android is a very open ecosystem, the answer may not be a global one player answering it every part of the world, you have great examples of regional players in places like India, China, which serve the needs of those markets very well," he said.

For now, however, it seems like the company is content with working with partners like its Nexus program, the report said.

"Globally it's a very competitive marketplace. The smartphone industry, the hardware industry, it's a very efficient industry. Even Amazon, they base it on Android too. I look at it and say Android is a large scale, open platform," he said.

Pichai also unveiled 'Google Home', a voice-activated product that brings 'Google Assistant' to any room in your house, a new messaging app called 'Allo' and video calling feature 'Duo' at the 'Google I/O'.

The 'Google Assistant' is conversational - an ongoing two-way dialogue between you and Google that understands your world and helps you get things done, it said.

"Computers are good at certain things but what's changing is we now believe we can start doing the things which are much more intelligent," Pichai added.

Google has worked with a range of partners to build Nexus phones, with the company controlling the software and some hardware elements, while leaving manufacturing to its partners, who have included LG, HTC and Huawei, among others.

Photograph: Adnan Abidi/Reuters