Google waves goodbye to China

Lawley, so your recent scoop talked about how Google has told its suppliers that it's going to have all of its Pixel products, so that's its smartphones, smartwatches and earbuds, produced outside China from 2027.

In a nutshell, can you explain why it took this decision?

Actually, Google is one of the American companies that has been quite aggressive to decouple from China since the escalating US-China tension several years ago.

So they kind of already built some foundations outside of the country, namely in Vietnam and India.

So this move, though sounds very bold, is actually a deliberate calculation by Google.

And I'm not sure if you still remember, earlier this year, you and I actually talked about Google's plan to develop and produce high-end Pixel phones in Vietnam.

So that trial turned out to be smooth and successful, which means Vietnam is capable of handling such complicated engineering processes.

And that gave Google confidence to proceed with the plan to exit China's production next year for all of its Pixel hardwares.

So will there be any other products that Google will be making in China, say its smart speakers, after this? Or does this mean Google is completely pulling out of Chinese manufacturing?

This is a tricky question because I can't say there will be absolutely no other Google products to be made in China in the future because you never say never.

But as of Google's current plan under the current global geopolitical dynamics, we can confirm that Google is indeed pulling out of Chinese manufacturing for all of its Pixel hardware.