Huawei exec says new Nexus coming this year

Huawei’s Nexus 6P was a roaring success among critics and fans—an all metal beauty with a great camera and terrific screen. Aside from a few early bugs, there wasn’t much to dislike. That’s why it’s no surprise to hear that Huawei, along with HTC, is very much in the Nexus conversation again this year. So says Charlene Munilall, general manager for Huawei’s Consumer Business Group.

While in South Africa for the launch of the P9, P9 Plus, and P9 Lite, Munilall talked about the fervor around the Nexus 6P, and revealed the company is “doing the Nexus again.”

Here’s a quote, via GearBurn:

The Nexus product is a very niche product… the techies love it but there’s a very small number of people that buy it. Hence Cellucity only brought 300… into the country. The operators generally don’t take up the Nexus device. That said, the distributors, our open market, do bring in the device, that’s how Cellucity got it… and that will still be the same this year. We’re doing the Nexus again this year, by the way…

We’ve seen hints of a Nexus 6P sequel already, but by all accounts, HTC is going to be in charge of creating two Nexus device this year, supposedly while working more closely with Google. Now, it turns out there may be three new Nexus devices in 2016, likely ranging from cheap to cheaper to cheapest.

Just because someone at Huawei says it’s “doing the Nexus again” doesn’t mean whatever the company creates will be available to the public. Google might decide not to release the device in favor of whatever it is HTC is creating. Or, more than likely, Google wants to capitalize on the success of last year’s Nexus 6P by working with Huawei again while offering a broader Nexus lineup (that part is being handled by HTC).

With Google I/O in the rearview, we’re coming into the summer lull before the mobile market springs back into life in the fall. So will we see another Nexus made by Huawei later this year? I’d be very surprised if we didn’t.