It was earlier reported that Huawei skipped building the Pixel for Google this year due to branding issue. The lack of any kind of branding on the Pixel handsets was not something that the Chinese OEM was comfortable with. Huawei had previously had partnered with Google in 2015 for the highly praised Nexus 6P.

The VP of Huawei’s Consumer Business Group Colin Giles has now gone on record to confirm that the lack of branding was indeed the reason for the Chinese OEM to skip manufacturing the Pixels for Google. This ultimately led to the end of Google and Huawei working together on a 6P successor, with Google finally working with HTC on the new Pixels.

Huawei, however, continues to have a strong relationship with Google. While it might not launch a new handset in partnership with Google this year, there have been leaks that indicate it will launch a new 7-inch tablet running Andromeda, the hybrid ChromeOS-Android merger which was expected to be unveiled by Google at its Pixel event in early October but that did not pan out for some reason. Nonetheless, the initial rumor had pegged the release date of the 7-inch Huawei tablet before the end of this year, so it is possible that we can still see Google and Huawei unveil their new creation.