Or maybe do they really want your phone number? (Uninformed guess but isn't it valuable data?)
Phone 2 factor is pretty much the only kind of 2 factor most people will accept, and for most people the phone number probably has better security than most people's emails, because most people reuse passwords, while with phones you had to do a special non-password effort for them.
E: Seriously? This is a multi billion dollar industry. Oh no, Google would never do that…