2014 pushed smartphone industry in wrong direction

2014 was a very good year for price conscious smartphone buyers. It was a good year for Chinese brands and for brands with limited product lineup. It was a good year for generic designs that offer superb hardware enclosed by a generic no-frills shell. 2014 was a bad year for flagship products. 2014 was a bad year for breakthrough devices. 2014 was a bad year for brick and mortar stores. It was a bad year for those who does not track technology. And this trend can be very very damaging to the smart phone industry in the long run.

Till the year 2013, anyone can buy smart phone of their choice as long as they have money. Those who didn’t have enough cash in hand would go with EMI options. If I wanted to buy a phone, all I need to do is check at a nearby store and online, pay money to one that offers best price (and is reliable) and either immediately or withing few days, the phone would be in my hand. The entire process was absolutely simple. 2014 brought in too much of complexity to this process. First, the phone(s) will be exclusive to a particular e-tailer, one need to register for sale/invite and then either wait for invite to come or try his/her luck at flash sale. If the person is trying to buy a new phone while current phone is working well, this wont be that much of a headache but imaging the state of those who lost their phone or whose phone is broken and want to buy his/her favourite phone. Few are actually forced to go with second or third or fourth option (from their list of favourite phones) or buy a feature phone and keep trying their luck or head to e-bay and pay extra for phone or pay money to buy invite. I lost my Galaxy S3 just days before Xiaomi launched Mi3 in India and I was able to place order the in the very first flash sale. It took 40 minutes for me to place order. If I had never followed technology, I wouldn’t have known about Mi3 and I may have gone with a midrange okayish phone as I cannot wait weeks altogether to try luck at flash sales. Like every other product, I think smartphones should be made widely available and this registration/invite system should be ditched for the sake of transparent and better sales structure. No fake demand, no crashing website and no black market sale of invites/phones.

From the day the first iPhone was released, innovation in smartphone industry went at break neck speed. Once every few months, we would see some amazing new technology come up. And then in 2012, everything slowed down. It slowed down further in 2013 and in 2014, it took a U-turn. Apple and Samsung (with designs based on iPhone 4 and Galaxy S3) showed the world that ‘generic’ and ‘one design many models’ is the way to go. Smart phones in 2014/2015 are designed based on two or three year old designs with minor tweaks here and there (eg: galaxy series, xperia series, lumia series, iPhone series, LG G series etc). This has NEVER happened before. We cannot term ‘more pixels’ ‘more RAM’ ‘bigger display’ ‘smaller bezel’ ‘more cores’ as innovation. It’s evolution. Till the year 2013, when you compare two smartphones that are two years apart, they would be radically different. Not anymore. The only surprises from 2014 are from smart phones that are priced super low compared to other phones with same specifications. When you are at awe looking at price sheet instead of looking at the specsheet, you should know that you are shoving innovation into the gutter. Companies like LG, Nokia, Apple, Sony not only make great smart phones, they also invest lot of money, time and effort into bringing new technologies into the market. When we start asking these companies to take super low profits, we are indirectly asking them to stop innovating and just give smartphones that are cheap and crammed with generic stuff, to slow down innovation and make the phones evolve at a painfully slow rate. Why would they care when the return of investment is negligible. It is probably because of this lack of RoI that these companies are eyeing other areas to innovate (smartTV, smart watch, smart appliances).

I do not mean to say that we should stop buying smartphones that offer more for less money. I am pleading these companies that sell more for less to create a level playing field. The longer these companies go ‘budget’ route, the more dangerous it is for them and for the industry. Sooner or later, buyers will start feeling the hunger for ‘’innovative and non-generic smartphones’ and it will be difficult doing a catch up with big brands that will have R&D structure that can give them a head start.