Can You Justify Buying a Flagship Anymore? [Long Read]
High-end smartphone manufacturers arenât selling their flagship phones like they did three years ago. HTC and Sony are almost on the verge of shutting down their mobile phone business. LG and Motorola are hardly making profits. And the top two dogs, Apple and Samsung, are seeing a slowing increase in sales. Meanwhile, Chinese brands are rising up and selling more than ever. Here is my breakdown of what is causing this shift in the smartphone industry.
Increased smartphone retention rates
The smartphone market wasnât as saturated 3 or 4 years ago as it is now. Back then, the majority were still hanging on to their feature or âdumbâ phones. Today, almost everyoneâs upgraded to a smartphone. And most of them are willing to stick with their phones for at least a couple of years.
Why donât we need to upgrade so often anymore?
Smaller leaps in performance: In the early days of smartphones, each new model offered a considerable upgrade in features and performance, you could quickly be left behind. The leaps in the last few years cannot be compared to the jumps when WiFi, GPS, 3G or cameras were first released, you needed those technologies, or you became outdated.
Flagships move away from performance
The shift in how phones are marketed has moved away from hardware-based aspects, where RAM, CPU, WiFi, and GPS used to be critical points of competition, larger/smaller/curved screens, ultra slim, gorilla glass, longer battery life, and metal frames have now become key points of difference. Aesthetics and size changes have taken the lead in how brands communicate their phones. Even the push for 2K screens is just hype as your eye cant detect the difference. Cameras are one area that is still a drawcard, but even then for online use an old phone can take a good selfie and make a good snapshot.
All of these things are improvements, but as you are not missing out on any significant change in technology, it is not a strong reason to ditch a phone that already performs well.
Just look at your desktop PC
Laptops and PCs followed a similar cycle, specs from even 5 years ago are still good enough for everything you do today, but if you contrast back to Windows 95-XP days, you often needed a hardware upgrade to enjoy the latest features or connectivity. Now Windows 7 and 10 will happily operate on the same machine without the need for a physical upgrade. Why? Because the performance needed to run an operating system and run regular tasks has been surpassed, you donât get a vastly improved day to day performance with a new computer, the bottleneck now is internet speed, not your hardware. If your computer is a few years old, chuck in an SSD for a vastly faster startup and load time.
Smartphones are entering this stage too where an upgrade might be faster, but it is not going to change your use of the device or unlock something new.
Peaked mobile performance requirements
Look at what you do with your phone today, and compare to last year, the web, software, and entertainment have changed a lot, but the actual performance you require from your phone has not dramatically changed. Web browsing, Facebook, Reddit, watching videos opening a few apps and using a GPS has already been catered for, the latest smartphones offer more speed or ability to open more apps at once but nothing revolutionary.
Again you can look at computersâŚ
In the last 5 years, software and the web have not needed any physical hardware upgrade. So you have not been pushed to change your setup just to keep current software or your online social life and entertainment accessible.
Everyone loves a new phone (or a new PC), but unlike the early smartphone days, you are not so quickly pushed to upgrade anymore, as the older model might be slower but will still update, run and operate the same programs.
Things have also been optimized
The push to optimize applications has also made them smaller and lighter so newer apps can actually be less resource heavy than their earlier versions.
The same can be said with the web, the focus on optimizing a page is based on making it smaller, making the server faster and only loading what is necessary. Gone are the days of bloated Java heavy sites with awesome animation and buttons. Pages might be increasing in overall size (mostly due to more pictures), but the actual performance needed to web browse has not considerably changed since the beginning of the YouTube video era.
New Media Needs New Hardware
Throughout history our media consumption has had a few epic developments, printed media, radio and TV were all huge shifts in the way we consume media. All these changes also required new physical hardware both to produce and consume. Video has been the latest for a long time, but now a huge shift is coming. VR, AI, and ultra-high resolution will develop into a new interactive medium of entertainment and commerce. This will bring a new horizon to hardware performance and new features.
Until VRÂ or another big hardware development comes, we can expect to see people upgrading their phone less often.
Chinese Smartphone Adoption Hitting Big Brands
The flagships are also facing an increase in competition from imported smartphone brands. Besides Korea and Japan, thereâs another Asian country thatâs making a name for itself with its smartphones â China. Smartphone users who are willing to upgrade no longer have only a handful of OEMs to look up to. The options at their disposal have multiplied, thanks to Chinese manufacturers such as Huawei, OnePlus, Xiaomi, Vivo, Meizu, and Oppo. They offer top-notch, flagship hardware for a mid-range price. For example, the recently introduced Xiaomi Mi5 does almost everything a Samsung Galaxy S7 can do. It packs in the same hardware as the S7, and it also doesnât skimp on build quality. Despite such identical traits, Xiaomi sells its flagship for less than $400. The Samsung equivalent retails for almost $700.
The Top Dogs are Not Going Anywhere, Yet
With Xiaomi, Oneplus, Oppo and others making a mark in the smartphone industry within a relatively short period, seasoned players may have seen a hit in their bottom line, but they are not anywhere close to incurring losses. Samsung, Apple, LG phones are still seeing a good number of buyers. There are reasons why people buy the much more expensive Samsung and Apple phones when there are equivalent, less costly alternatives.
First, these companies have created a brand loyalty or fan base thatâs hard to wipe off within a couple of years, especially the Apple fans are hard to convert. Moreover, the more prominent brands have a wider distribution network. Their phones are accessible in almost every part of the world. Itâs nearly impossible to find a mobile phone store that doesnât have Samsung or Apple phones on display. Chinese brands are yet to spread their wings outside China and India, although available online, the physical presence of these names has not spread so quickly. From a service perspective, Apple, Samsung, and even LG, for that matter, have an established customer service network.
Shopping online and ordering from China has also become much faster and safer. With the rise in local warehouses and protection offered by PayPal and Credit card companies getting your phone from overseas is hasslefree.
Chinese phones are now hard to resist
The dedication of these brands to imitate Apple and Samsung, not in just looks, but also performance and quality have resulted in not only cheap alternatives but in fact robust alternatives to big brands. These Chinese flagships have proven they can mix function and price and in doing so have greatly threatened the overpriced flagship brands.
People are not replacing their phones so frequently, and the market is slowing.
It is slowing because the performance we need for regular use has not changed, we donât need faster / higher specs to keep software updated.
The trend can be easily seen in the development of the laptop and PC industries.
A new shift in how we use our phones will energize the market again, VR/AI has this potential.
Chinese brands have shifted from producing knockoffs to creating their own flagships.
The winners in this lull are smartphones brands from China who are rapidly gaining market share, they offer top specs with unbeatable value for money.
Running some old brick of a thing and looking to upgrade?
Experience the value of Chinese smartphones, youâll be amazed what even $150 can get regarding performance.
Popular Chinese Smartphones
What do you think? Can you still justify buying a Samsung or Apple?
Can You Justify Buying a Flagship Anymore? [Long Read] was originally published on Banggood.com Official Gadget Blog And Latest News Reel
