The Great Smartphone Massacre: Android bloodbath gathers pace

Dear Sony.

A friend wanted a smartphone, sim=free of course (only mugs buy on contract). The only choice worth considering was the 32Gb Nexus5 which fit the bill perfectly, still great performance, good camera, looks fantastic, decent build quality.

Problem is, can you buy one ANYWHERE? Nope, it was a limited run by Google/LG. Where are you? If you want to sell phones, shouldn't you be filling these gaps, and making your phones more desirable, by say adding waterproofness....

it's not rocketscience.

Profit margin

Apple make obscene amounts of profit on their handsets but people don't seem to mind as they "look the part"

Samsung are far too late to the table with the better looking Alpha and note 4 (and they're far too expensive in the UK), and Touchwiz with Knox just pisses people off. Sounds like Samsung are going down the Microsoft road of "we know best" but it will screw them in the end.

For something that is going to kick around my pocket/bag for a year or so...

My Moto G 2nd gen at £150 is doing the job rather nicely.

When I started in the phone business

The top names were

Motorola (35% market share)

Ericsson

NEC

and new hotshot Mobira which became Nokia.

Commoditisation

I think that the "commoditisation" level was reached with the Qualcomm 800 and KitKat. They are "good enough" for the great majority of people (in fact, more than good enough). A Chinese manufacturer can knock out an adequate product and they haven't yet built up the huge chains of distribution, marketing and sales overhead that affect Apple, Samsung and Sony. Put simply, if the typical COGS for a Western manufacturer is 50% I wouldn't be surprised if it is nearer to 75-80% for a Chinese manufacturer. Look at "One plus" experimenting with having almost no S&M overhead at all.

The bad news is that this means fewer middle class jobs, and less upper class income, in the US and Europe. But mobile phones are basically terminals, and the middle and upper class overhead really is not necessary.

When ballpoint pens came out they were exotic and expensive. Now they are nearly free. There is a small demand for expensive ballpoints made of exotic materials, but they don't write any better. The long term risk is therefore to Apple, because once things are good enough the perceived status from owing an expensive one goes down, turning the makers into niche companies.

EE (Huawei) Kestrel

The missus accidentally 'dunked' her 'dumb' phone and bought a PAYG Kestrel for £89. Can't fault it. When my 30-month old Galaxy S3 finally gives up the ghost, I can't see why I'd want to spend £400 on a replacement.

I want an upgradable OS and more than 4 Gb of flash on a bargain Android phone

I have seen lots of cheap Android smartphones around. Unfortunately many of them are running old insecure versions of Android and because the manufacturers have written their own UIs they can never be upgraded to the latest version of Android. Also if you have a phone with only 4Gb of on phone flash then you can never install more than around 10 apps at the same time on the phone. It is unfortunate that you can no longer move apps to the microSDHC card as you could in the days of Android 2.2. I recently bought a Lumia 630 to try out Windows 8.1 and was pleased to find that you can install apps onto your microSDHC card. I currently have around 60 apps on my Lumia. Google take note you would sell more apps if people could install them on a microSDHC card.

Compared to Apple who are raking it in.

Why? simple, they produce two phone models.

£400 to £500 for a phone? No way.

I never have and never will pay some of the prices being asked for a top spec phone, I don't care what system it runs I just find it crazy to pay something like £400 for a phone. It's the same with tablet computers, for what most people want a low cost, in the region of £200 say, is sufficient for most of their needs. I learnt my lessons when buying desktop computers, wanting an updated powerful machine was something I wished for and having paid nearly a couple of thousand quid to get it I find that only a few weeks later there appeared better spec machines at lower prices. As I say never again, I learnt the hard way.

Android OEMs are copying Apple in all the wrong ways

Apple phones and gadgets are fashion icons. Yes through marketing and hype, but there is also a critical factor that most companies seem to ignore or not understand.

Apple is able to make fashion icons because of a simple thing: it releases ONE or at most TWO devices. That means that they are distinguishable and easily recognised. Someone says "I have the iPhone" or "I want the iPhone".

Now try to do that with other brands. Try to say "I have the XPERIA". What the heck are you talking about? Which of the myriad XPERIA phones do you have? 'I want the Galaxy". Which Galaxy? The S, the One, the... the... . Crap.

Furthermore, in focusing on one ro two devices, it means HUGE economies of scale. Now what is important to understand, is that these economies of scale are not mostly for components. No. They are economies of scale for development, thoughts. ideas, effort, software, services. Instead of distracting through a myriad devices, focusing on a single design, makes a huge difference in producing a product that is clearly well thought of. How can you do that when you ship at the same time a line of 10 to 50 different phones in all sizes, features, hardware etc that can be imagined?

How do you support all those platforms?

Do you want a quick answer? You cannot and you dont. Sony is great for NOT supporting its phones at all. The Sony experience I had was a terrible one. No updates, a lot of crapware, full of bugs in the firmware and fast deprecation.

Google goes exactly the other way around: one device per category - it is copying Apple in exactly the way it should. This is what it did with Motorola and it made a splash with Moto G and Moto X.

So if Android vendors want to survive, I would say that they should forget the whole 100 phones strategy, forget that they will manage to cover all market needs and forget those awful skins and stupid things with the software.

Instead they should focus on producing a couple of solid devices, keep the Android software as close as possible to stock Android, make sure they can provide good response to issues and updates and try to make profit through services rather than loading the phone with crapware that everyone tries to remove.

Pining for the fjords

"Silver isn’t dead, it’s sleeping. Beautiful plumage."

I bought my dad a Moto G for Christmas to finally crack his smartphone phobia. It was something like £70 at the time (or maybe I used some vouchers to get it there, but definitely no more than £100).

Having used it I just don't see why 70% of the smartphone market would spend more. About 15-20% will want a camera that's better. Another 10-15% can't bear to be seen without a status symbol phone (I may be grossly underestimating on this one, of course...) and the rest will only spend more because it's rolled into a monthly fee they can afford and they remember back to when entry level smartphones really were clunky and lacking in important features.

Similarly, we've just got the wife an iPhone 5S and it's a nice phone but it's not as much better than a £70 phone as it was 3 years ago.

I think that will even get to be worrying for Apple in the medium term and in the short run Samsung must be petrified. Markets tend to commoditise when the cost of making new features exceeds the premium users are willing to pay for them and 'fitness' just doesn't look compelling enough at this point to drive innovation the way media streaming and cameras have been in prior iterations.

"HTC’s most recent product was a camera without a viewfinder"

Isn't it the Nexus 9?

Smartphones are the new featurephones

A couple of thoughts strike me about the article.

• A phone is a commodity. Welcome to 2007. Companies were making money then, they will now have to learn how to do it again
• Some people will pay more for certain kinds of hardware: huge screen, screen types and resolutions, SD-card, waterproof, battery life, etc.
• Who says the Chinese will do any better? Production is increasingly automated. What advantages do the Chinese have?
• How long can Apple defy gravity? Yes, it makes great products and has fantastic margins but as the recent sales in tablets have shown it's not immune to general trends in the market. And, as the 5c has shown, it sometimes gets things wrong. I'm personally not convinced that the Apple upgrade cycle won't start to look a lot like the Android (extended and increasingly focussed on value). Of course, there is a certain amount of lock-in but that might just encourage people to stick with what they've got.

So, in a nutshell, I don't agree with this black and white analysis.

I see the evil powers of Stephen Elop are infecting even Android manufacturers.

Samsung... I can understand the sales plunge

Here in Thailand Samsung has enjoyed huge market share post-Nokia's heyday but things are changing fast with new less-expensive models from Oppo and Huawei, among others, that are good quality on par with Samsung, Sony, and HTC. There are also a gazillion cheap Chinese knockoffs that keep getting better every year.

The Android market is indeed getting saturated, even here. What's worse for the smartphone market here is monopoly pricing and the fact that Thai mobile phone companies don't subsidize phones by locking you into long term contracts. If the OnePlus One actually goes on sale here (or anywhere for that matter) for the current promotional pricing it will be wildly popular with the Thais.

I've got an SG Note 2 I bought a couple of years ago and love it but pretty sure I'll try another brand when the time comes as mine developed the heinous no-connect wifi bug shortly after the warranty expired. Not only that a few months ago I had to replace the system mainboard as after a few months of worsening battery life it began severely overheating - not the battery BTW as I had also replaced it.

I'm definitely not impressed with the build quality of this Samsung phone, but I may have just gotten a crappy one. Since replacing the system board it works like new so am very happy with it for now. Still, when the time comes I'm sure I'll be able to find a good quality but less expensive alternative that still has all the whistles and bells. Yep, Samsung and the other top-tier Android brands had better make some changes or get ready for the fall.

It's simply that the market does not want big or expensive devices that can do the same as phones which are smaller and half the price. How many broken screen Iphone 5's and S4's do you whilst on the bus or in coffee shops because people either can't afford to replace or can't be bothered to upgrade to the next small step.

The Z3 is the only revolutionary phone this year (taking looks and android battery to the next level).

My son, a devout iPhone, user purchased the 6 on release and sold it the next day as it was too big and looked like an Android phone. "If I want a big Android phone I would buy a S4". Personally after years of release-day updates to my Nexus (as they were cheap and had latest software) I will have to stop upgrading - simply because the Nexus 6 is too big! I have also moved from Nexus tablet to a Shield Tablet - Nexus 9 too big and dearer and less revolutionary (basic same device but 1" smaller and 1080p console gaming, oh and £200 cheaper(ish) for the 32Gb with 4g LTE).

If the manufacturers want to "win" they need to get out of the mindset of selling to people that replace their phones every year and instead build some longevity into the offer.

I don't trust samsung, LG or any of the other manufacturers to keep updating my phone as security issues and bugs are found for 3 to 4 years. Apple? They do plain and simple.

My wife and I were walking through a store the other day and she saw a slick new washing machine. The claims on it sounded great, price seemed reasonable and she was just about to grab a salesperson when I said "honey, it's a samsung. That's the same company that made our TV and blueray player". Her response, "screw that. I don't need another problem."

Everything about these manufacturers is build it cheap, throw some gloss on it and completely forget about the customers that buy. The only thing droid has going for it is "cheap" but when you need to replace that phone every single year, well, it is far more expensive than the "good stuff"

i don't understand

Why do people feel the need to "upgrade" phones every couple of years?

Flash your shit to a less intrusive, and most customizable OS already and stop throwing all those toxins into the garbage bin/China.

mine is fine

My Samsung S3 is "good enough". When I bought it I paid £285 (Oct 2013) which I felt was too much at the time. I'm certainly going to keep it a few years. I don't want a bigger phone (pocket limitations) and this one seems to work fine, so no temptation to spend more money to update to S5 etc. So no more money from me for quite a while and I know I'm not the only person out there who thinks the same.

WARNING, Xiaomi phones are SPYING!

Everyone,please Google the title and see that the contry of India ,their top airforce general and other officials have found out that the phones are sending personal information back to servers in China,and some security outfits too have confirmed this. With the bad actors attaching the I-phones as well,it looks like Chinese manufacturers are in cahoots with the government. Xiaomi has not spoken ,or responded to these charges other than to give some general,vague statement. It looks really bad.

slider android please

I have been using a sharp IS14SH for the last few years.

I also have an iphone 5S through another job. The Iphone user interface just annoys me.

I use the Iphone mostly for consuming. Reading, checking facebook.

The android with the keyboard is used for everything that needs data input. I still win in typing speed against all my friends with my antique phone. a 12 key physical keyboard still wins against touchscreen keyboard in my case.

I can not use text prediction and autocorrect since I have to write in English, French, Dutch and Japanese sometimes using 3 languages in the same mail message.