Woah Apple lost the top spot in a quarter when they don't release any phones, but Samsung does.
this post was submitted on 15 Apr 2024
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Only sort of related, but it's kind of insane how many different phones Samsung releases. Checking GSMArena, they've apparently released an average of two phones per month over the last year.
Seems a bit overkill to me.
Are they all kind of the same, or do they serve different purposes?
I know people often complain about how there aren't any small phones anymore... that's often because, if a company only releases a phone once a year (or less) they're going to have a hell of a lot less variety. Because most companies are going to go for the general market, not the niche market.
Are they all kind of the same, or do they serve different purposes?
Different performance tiers and feature sets. You could spend anywhere from $100 to $1500.
The A series has a headphone jack, but doesn't support wireless charging. Current tiers are 0, 1, 2, 5, and 7. Not every generation has a tier 7 offering. Tier 5 and 7 are close to S series performance, but much cheaper and with worse cameras.
The S series has a wireless charging, but no headphone jack. Comes in standard, plus, and ultra sizes. Better performance than the A series. All the same processor, but bigger sizes can mean more RAM, storage, and better cameras. These ones are billed as premium phones and have a premium price point.
The Fold and Flip are neat, but not generally worth the price. The Fold is better overall, but both have issues with creases. I'd generally recommend skipping the Flip. The Fold can be neat if you really want the larger screen, but an A or S series is generally a better choice.
Sadly I don't think even with all these they have released a decent high performance small phone. At least not to US market.
No one big releases a small phone because no one buys them. Not even the people who whine and complaints about no small phone offering buys the small phones when they're offered. It's way too niche a market to break even.
No one big releases a small phone because no one buys them.
Except we don't have any good data to say why. Do people buy a bigger flagship over a smaller model that has older technology? Yes, but the only thing we can say with confidence from that is that people want the latest technology. The closest comparison we can make is Apple's Max/Plus and non-Max/Plus versions, which offer essentially the same model in two sizes. The smaller size consistently sells better. It's also cheaper. Does it sell better because it's smaller or because it's cheaper? Probably both, actually. But as long as nobody offers a small flagship (since Apple stopped making them entirely and switched to larger flagships), nobody can say for sure how well they'd sell.
The phone makers can say for sure because they have years of market and sales data on them, and a huge amount of r&d lol
No, that's precisely my point: they don't because no major phone manufacturer has simultaneously sold both a large and compact flagship. And when there are legitimately comparable models in different sizes, the smaller size fairly reliably sells better.
That's not true. Apple sold a mini version for several generations and consistently the mini was always the worst performing version sales wise. Samsung made a mini version of the Galaxy S as well for a while. It also underperformed.
That’s not true. Apple sold a mini version for several generations and consistently the mini was always the worst performing version sales wise.
The "mini" lineup was never truly comparable to the flagship product. The specific deficiencies varied with the year but they were all missing an entire camera, and cameras are one of the single most important features of an iPhone.
The mini phones were significantly and arbitrarily gimped to mark them as a distinctly (and quite visibly) lower tier phone.
We do. The smallest iPhones, back when the iPhone had three sizes versions were consistently the less sold, by a wide margin. They still had old new stock years after the production halted. Even the modern small phones specifically made to address that niche market, underperform and end up with unsold stock on hand, despite having small production runs to begin with. This is publicly available info you can find googling for a few seconds. There are extensive essays made by journalist that always start hopefully looking for the perfect small phone, and end up discovering that none are made because they don't sell at all. There's not enough people who want a small phone (and I'm one of those people) to even call it a niche market.
Here's Marques Brownlee's breakdown of the issues and data available about small phones.
The smaller phones were not comparable models. They were a lower-tier product with fewer features. This contrasts with the regular and Plus/Max versions where it's very much positioned as the same phone in two sizes.
You ignore that it's physically impossible to put a flagship performance in an under 5 inch format. Under 6 is already a challenge. The battery alone scales with size. The camera is a physically space occupying bunch of glass and sensors, that even the ultra size phones have to put them in awkward bulges outside the phone main body to deliver the kind of qualety demanded by users.
Your demands are irrational and it's precisely why the manufacturers don't bother anymore. Bunch of drama from a perfectioninst segment that's smaller than 5% of the market at best, who never buy anything but complaints all day and night that their specific unrealistic demands are not met. This is not the way man. To have nice things you have to learn to compromise.
The compromise of the iPhone 13 mini were reasonable and it was still a high performing processor which could do the same things that the big brothers and the battery still lasted almost a whole day. The camera was equivalent in quality as well. It was praised by everyone and their mother as an achievement of modern engineering putting that much power in such a small form package. And almost no one bought it. End of story, get over it.
You ignore that it’s physically impossible to put a flagship performance in an under 5 inch format.
Not even slightly.
The battery alone scales with size. The camera is a physically space occupying bunch of glass and sensors, that even the ultra size phones have to put them in awkward bulges outside the phone main body to deliver the kind of qualety demanded by users.
The obvious solution is to make the body of the phone very slightly thicker. Thinness is more important in a bigger phone to shave off some of the overall bulk and make it easier to hold but when the area of the phone is smaller, you can easily make it thicker, with the added advantage of making the camera bulge less ridiculous. I’m reluctant to even call it a tradeoff because you’re not really giving anything up. This would have been a legitimately comparable phone, but they never made it so there’s no direct sales comparison in the market. There is no hard data, only inferences.
Sure, whatever.
I can't flood all the sales channels with my products with only a few products though -- That would require me to make a quality product people really liked and kept coming back for like an Iphone or pixel and we can sell it through our own website
Keep in mind most of them are barely different from each other. It's mostly a regional thing with laws, but a lot of them will recycle the panels or SoCs.
Yeah probably there are other factors in the play here too. I agree, it's definitely overkill, but it seems this spam phones tactic is working well for their revenues then.
You say that until you need a specific niche phone and find a Samsung version of it, a branch you know is consistent and trustworthy.
@Zorque@kbin.social They have a phone in every price range starting from free with activation to $2000. Sometimes they use old hardware and software, sometimes they need niche software drivers like the Flip and Fold.
Don't these two go back and forth like every other year for the past several years?
Probably - but this is a shitty metric anyway. First because the two companies are not competing for the same space. And second because you should really be measuring active users - not device purchases.
you should really be measuring active users - not device purchases.
Why? Device purchases is a measurement of how well the company sells while active users shows how reliable the product is. One is good for business, the other is believed to be less so, ar least by the current batch of CEOs
because iphones are more likely to be passed along to 2nd 3rd and even 4th users, all who add to services revenues and spend in app stores and accesories. you can see by how they hold their value better over more time.
Ngl, the Samsung foldables look sick as hell. But I'm not ready to go back to OneUI bloat or whatever they're doing with SamsungAI.
Can't recommend unfortunately. My wifes Flip3 was repaired two times, and now the plastic film on the display loosened a third time. She now bought a fairphone.
You are correct, oneui is still bloated and awful but their flagship processors are getting good enough that you don't feel the bloat quite as painfully as you used to.
I swear to god, 90% of “feeling the bloat” is completely artificial. Go to dev settings and turn up the speed on all the animations. Everything is faster.
My biggest issue is the settings menu being a fucking mess. The new categories suck hard. Wanna see an overview of your storage? Well it used to be under “usage” with your data and battery, but data usage got moved to “connections” with bluetooth and wifi. Now data usage lives under “battery and device care”, conveniently placed 6th from the bottom of the list for easy access.
Had the fold since 2. The Fold 5 is a tank compared to the Fold 3. I have dropped my fold 5 from a moving motorcycle in the rain. The Fold 3 was the most problematic. My wife has the Fold 4 and it is ok.
I recommend the warranty on all these phones.
Maybe the flip is awesome but the fold is a pain the fucking ass
We've had mixed results. Wife and I both had Galaxy Z Flip4. I dropped mine repeatedly and it's still going strong (though I have since upgraded). Wife never abused hers and the inner screen started dying right after the warranty expired. Probably more luck of the draw than flip related.
The EU version is super nice. Don't know what the carriers do in the US but the EU version is pretty good and can only say good things about the OneUI
Tune in next month when a different company says the exact opposite
In hard economic times, high cost things have to hang
This is the best summary I could come up with:
Global smartphone shipments increased 7.8% to 289.4 million units during January-March, with Samsung, at 20.8% market share, clinching the top phonemaker spot from Apple.
The iPhone-maker’s steep sales decline comes after its strong performance in the December quarter when it overtook Samsung as the world’s No.1 phone maker.
Xiaomi, one of China’s top smartphone makers, occupied the third position with a market share of 14.1% during the first quarter.
South Korea’s Samsung, which launched its latest flagship smartphone lineup — Galaxy S24 series — in the beginning of the year, shipped more than 60 million phones during the period.
The Cupertino, California-based company in June will hold its Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC), where it will highlight updates to the software powering iPhones, iPads, and other Apple devices.
Investors are closely watching for updates on artificial intelligence development at Apple, which has so far spoken little about incorporating the AI technology into its devices.
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