Google’s Android chief says company doesn’t need retail stores

Google’s Andy Rubin, the company’s head of its Android mobile operating system, said the company has no plans to open retail stores.

Rubin made his remarks at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, Spain, this week. Rubin’s comments come after recent reports by the Wall Street Journal and 9to5Google said the Mountain View, Calif., tech company would be opening retail stores later this year in time for the holiday shopping season.

“Google has no plans and we have nothing to announce,” Rubin said, according to AllThingsD.

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Rubin explained that retail stores were important to smartphones and tablets in their infancy because they were needed to introduce the technology to consumers. He said that isn’t necessary now. He also said Google’s line of Nexus phones and tablets is still young.

“For Nexus, I don’t think the program is far enough along to think about the necessity of having these things in a retail store,” he said.

Despite Rubin’s claims, 9to5Google said the retail stores would be born out of Google’s X lab, not its Nexus business. Google X is responsible for the company’s Google Glass smart-glasses project, which the company has said it hopes to begin selling to the general public before the end of 2013.

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