In the north american phone market, Google has 2.3% market share. The other two vendors with their custom chips have 55% (Apple) and 26% (Samsung) and are marke

In the north american phone market, Google has 2.3% market share. The other two vendors with their custom chips have 55% (Apple) and 26% (Samsung) and are market leaders globally as well. Globally, Google's market share is even worse. They certainly have the capital and manpower to design chips, but as selling phones and chromebooks isn't such a great priority for Google, they might not pour as much money into it as Apple so the resulting performance might be disappointing. Furthermore, no matter the amount of money spent, they likely won't it get back unless they start licensing the SoC but for that to work it has to be much better than the alternatives. Overall, with Moore's law dying, there will be a trend towards more and more vendors building custom chips, but that's a rather long term trend and I think Google is a bit early for it. From a strategic point of view though it does make sense because it gives Google a foot in the door, seats on committees, etc., giving Google both information as well as influence. But I wouldn't be surprised if the project gets cancelled in 3 years.