Rick Osterloh, the senior vice president of hardware at Google, confirmed in an interview with AndroidPIT that the Pixel would be getting a follow-up this year.

"There is an annual rhythm in the industry,” Osterloh said. “So, you can count on us to follow it.”

Google’s hardware head wouldn’t give a more specific timetable for the new Pixel beyond sometime this year. "You can count on a successor this year, even if you don't hear a date from me now,” he said. While we had expected that Google would be continuing the Pixel line, this is the first official confirmation that we’ll be seeing a new model this year.

As for the phone’s price, it doesn’t seem that Google has any plans to make a budget version. Per Osterloh: "Pixel stays premium.”

Of course, launching a new Pixel phone is all well and good. But hopefully in addition to developing its next major smartphone, Google’s also working on figuring out how to actually ship the current generation of Pixels it already sells.