Google Says Sold 5 Million Chromecast Dongles in Last 2 Months

Google's little HDMI streaming dongle - the Chromecast - is apparently one of its most successful hardware products. Google CEO Sundar Pichai has revealed that almost 30 million units of the Chromecast have been sold since its launch in 2013, out of which 5 million have been sold in the past two months alone.

These numbers were revealed by Pichai (via 9to5Google) while announcing Google's second quarter financial earnings. Alphabet made $21.5 billion in revenue for the second quarter of 2016. This includes the sales figures of the old Chromecast dongle, the second-generation Chromecast dongle, and the new Chromecast Audio.

In the first year of its launch, Google had managed to sell as many as 17 million Chromecast units. Most of the credit was given to its affordable price tag of $35, and being a cheap alternate for otherwise expensive smart TVs. By May 2016, Google had managed to sell as many as 25 million units, and in just two months alone, the figure escalated to 30 million.

In April this year, Google launched its second-generation Chromecast dongle and the new Chromecast Audio dongle in India, both priced at Rs. 3,399. The media-streaming dongles are available on several online marketplaces including Flipkart, Snapdeal, Paytm, as well as offline retailers like Reliance Digital and Croma.

The new Chromecast dongle sports a revamped circle-shaped design with a looped HDMI cable, and is available in three colour options. It comes with improved connectivity, faster streaming, and a new Feeds feature to let users choose what content should be displayed on the screen.

The Chromecast Audio dongle, on the other hand, lets users stream music to regular, dumb speakers without wireless connectivity directly from their smartphone or laptop. It works with Android and iOS devices, apart from PCs. The device supports high-quality audio, 2-watt RMS, and an optional optical digital out that sits in the hybrid port.

Going back to the earnings reports, Alphabet surpassed expectations with its reported revenue of $21.5 billion significantly rising from the $17.7 billion it had earned last year. It reported a profit of $4.9 billion.