

India’s fondness for Android seems to have made Google sit up and pay attention to the growth potential in a market where 97% of all smartphones run on its operating system. A new report has surfaced claiming that Google is getting ready to launch smartphones under its own brand name instead of the Nexus brand across selected markets, which include India.

According to sources cited by Gadgets 360, two Google-branded smartphones are on their way, one with a 5-inch display and 32 GB of internal storage, and the other with a 5.5-inch display and 128 GB of on-board storage. Both the devices will arrive with Android 7.0 Nougat in September, and will be positioned as high-end or premium models.

While there’s not much to go by in terms of their specs, the little information that is available seems to match the leaked specifications of the two upcoming Nexus smartphones, Sailfish and Marlin, said to be manufactured by HTC for Google. In fact, two HTC Nexus devices have just been spotted stopping by at the US FCC. If the new reports are to be believed, then the Google-branded smartphones are actually just Sailfish and Marlin without the Nexus moniker, and will also be manufactured by HTC.

Google’s attempt to position the two branded devices as premium smartphones is being seen as an attempt to take on the iPhone. The Google-branded devices will reportedly feature a new mechanism to transfer data from the iPhone in order to simplify the on-boarding process for new users.

It remains to be seen if Google succeeds in taking on the iPhone with its own brand of smartphones in the budget-conscious Indian smartphone market, where Apple’s expensive and premium devices have been losing share. In fact, the new Google-branded devices could actually end up hurting Samsung more by eating into its India sales, which have already been affected by feature-rich and attractively-priced Chinese handsets.

All these are only rumors at the time, and there’s no word yet on the pricing and markets where Google will offer its own brand of smartphones. We’ll be keeping our ear to the ground for this one and update you as soon as we hear something new.

Are you excited over the rumors about Google-branded smartphones and would you buy one? Hit the comments below to let us know!