Samsung Galaxy S21: Really a Worthy Upgrade?

When it comes to smartphone naming, Sony should probably learn a few things from Samsung. Keeping S series flagship's name in sync with launch year itself (2021) is such a good idea. In a world of same boring smartphone design, S21 is a much appreciated step forward for a fresh design. Samsung S21 embraces camera bump arising as a result of increasing size of camera sensors. It is now made of metal and flows out naturally from metal sides. Apart from giving phone a fresh two tone finish, this also drastically improves strength of external structure surrounding camera lens.

S21 Ultra is in it's class of it's own and considering it is 200 dollars more expensive than S21 Plus, it makes for a certainly better looking deal. S21 plus on the other hand being just a larger variant of S21 in terms of display and battery size is a complete 200 dollars expensive than S21. Despite having premium glass back built (not necessarily better for  butterfingers) S21 Plus is one of those variants whose presence is just to flip your purchase decision to either S21 or S21 Ultra. All this may change from few months of launch if Samsung decides to cut down on selling price of some model, mostly due to demand patterns.

Coming in at a starting price tag of $799, S21 is the most exciting one of the bunch. Though it is supposed to be S20's successor, it feels more like of an excellent upgrade over S20FE. This is due to a better camera hardware setup and a generational processor upgrade with similar starting price and build material of S20FE. One other interesting point to note is this year's launch timeline of S series, which is about 3 months before usual. This can be attributed to be in the race of being among first few phones with Qualcomm's latest top of the line Snapdragon 888 processor. This can also be simply due to the fact that Samsung realizing growing demand since people interacted with their phones more than ever in lock-downs of 2020 and realized a need to upgrade or holding back on unnecessary spending in uncertain times of pandemic.

As usual, last year's S20 international variant (outside US and Japan) had Samsung's home-grown flagship Exynos chip powering it. Exynos variant was quite inferior to Snapdragon processor variant in many departments like peak computing power, thermal performance and battery life. Tech community and Samsung fans finally decided that this long time ongoing discrimination from Samsung is enough. There were social media campaigns by tech community asking Samsung to stop releasing and selling inferior Exynos variant. As this topic was covered by various online media outlets and famous tech Youtubers, it got attention of many resulting in deterioration in brand image. Samsung definitely took this feedback from their fans on a positive note and learned from their previous mistakes to launch Exynos 2100 powered S21 series. Exynos 2100 was not only just a big upgrade over last year's Exynos 900 but also was able to bridge gap between it and Snapdragon 888 to an extent where it feels a big step forward in right direction.

iPhone SE : A Challenge to Android

Apple continues to refresh its product lineups in 2020, which it started last year along with introduction to new apple services as a response to falling iPhone sales. Lesser number of iPhone are selling globally since smartphone industry is facing a slowdown worldwide with major markets like US reaching saturation point. With a reliance of more than 60% of total revenue on iPhone sales simply means Apple had to renew its old products and give people another reason to go and buy those to keep up-to expected quarterly figures.

One such product is iPhone SE, a refresh to original version launched in 2016. Apple made this phone possible by replacing brains of iPhone 8 by Apple's most powerful chip till that date (A13 Bionic). One other cosmetic change to make it distinguishable from iPhone 8 is to move that Apple logo (on the back) down to center.

source : wired

There are both demand and supply side justification for this new iPhone launch. Looking at demand side, people who can't get along new drastic changes with ever-evolving design, holding back to old iPhone and are in need of familiar hardware and software experience to upgrade, now have an excellent option in form of this is new iPhone. It can also be a good buy for first iPhone experience and such people are generally who are on android side of world, held by hefty price tag on new iPhone. iPhone SE is indeed a special edition phone because profit from each piece of iPhone sold is gonna be comparable to more expensive iPhone. This is possible in case of iPhone SE since Apple don't need to spend on R&D, a major cost factor for any other iPhone. Apple is seeking benefits of proprietary processor and already available design and production assembly of iPhone 8.   

Despite being a silent launch amid pandemic crisis, this phone started creating a lot of buzz among smartphone enthusiasts and reviewers and that's all because of it being cheapest iPhone model with starting price of  $399 in US. This new phone was very well received by online publications in US, in spite of  packing an age old hardware and design, citing all improvements Apple's A13 Bionic chip brings like improved raw computing power, next-gen HDR processing for photos and power efficient processor for better battery life. All this but more importantly highlighting that a brand like Apple which is generally associated with premium product and pricing, now has compelling option in smartphone under $400. Viewers around the globe having built same opinion on this new iPhone after going through these reviews. This can create a serious problem, since not every region is like US when it comes to smartphone market.

Consider case of world's second largest smartphone market - India. Compared to US, a buyer in India will have to spend 40% more to grab a starting model of this new phone i.e. 42.5 K Indian Rupees. When keeping in mind that average selling price of phones in India is still less than $160, a phone which is targeted as semi-premium mid-range option in US becomes a premium option in India. This high price also becomes unnoticeable when price war is prevalent in budget and semi-premium smartphone segment and there are several tempting options in android world like OnePlus 8. 

If someone had bought entry level variant of iPhone 8 in India, back at its launch in 2017, it had set him back 64 K Indian Rupees. This was back when only original iPhone SE and iPhone 6S were being assembled in India. In Mar 2019, Indian Govt. had approved Wistron's Rs 5000 Cr investment proposal to setup a mega-factory. This was big boost for Make India as newer iPhone models like iPhone 8 were getting ready to be manufactured in India. Indian made variant of original iPhone SE and iPhone 6S were  around 40% cheaper compared to importing from other country. Going by same figures and local manufacturing of new iPhone SE since it is essentially a revised iPhone 8,  iPhone SE could have started at a price around 38 K Indian rupees.

A 50% hike in GST on smartphones (from 12% to 18%) accompanied with weak Indian Rupee especially during pandemic crisis are a few reasons behind a price tag which otherwise could have been much more tempting for smartphone enthusiasts. Apart from these reasons, there are other possible explanations which focus on market demographics, product placement and pricing strategy. 

Two Chinese players dominate Indian smartphone market with a combined market share of 68% (as of Q4 2019) - Xiaomi, BBK Electronics. There is an ongoing fierce battle among various brands of these two players to undercut opponent's product offering by releasing same or better spec'd product at lower price. Their short term objective to sell as many phones as possible by keeping low profit margin, is to built a loyal user base for their long term aim to be leading Internet company. 

Apple has same long term objective but it's approach is different. Apple is never going to compete in this price war because it can't afford to lose it's reputation of being a premium company by selling cheap hardware. Apple is patiently waiting for time when purchasing power of young population in India is going to be like that of China, where most people who can afford to buy an iPhone can also spend on services . Till then, Apple will always want people in it's next biggest market (India) to perceive that owning an Apple product is symbol of power, luxury and excellence. Currently, even if Apple prices their phones somewhat lower (than what are they today) in India right now , they will not only miss out on profit margins but also won't get people who can afford to spend on subscription based services on it's platform. 

Due to a 5 year long software support and many Indians preferring Apple's age old hardware over latest tech in similarly priced Android phones, Apple is able to sell their very old models in India for many years. This gives it a good opportunity in highly price sensitive Indian market to earn surplus from first degree price discrimination .i.e. keep reducing selling price over years to make product come under purchasing power of more people.  

Talking about challenge in post's title, the challenge is not to compete by putting up a android phone with this year specs and design but to do same as what Apple did with its iPhone 8.  Android OEMs stand no chance to accept this challenge because they know they won't be able to sell one-tenth of sales of this iPhone since they will be competing in vast pool of latest spec'd Android phones.  

The High and Low End Phones - 2019

High End of Phones - Folding screen Phones

2019 will remain special for smartphone enthusiasts as foldable phones made their way to shelves. The first one to be commercially available (Royole FlexPai) was the one which was most critisized by reviewers due to it's no confidence inspiring hinge for screen fold and inappropriate software experience. 

Samsung fold gained most attention as it's screen started to rip days after it was handed to reviewers. Reviewers had removed a film on screen that wasn't supposed to be. Samsung got away from Note 7 like fiasco as this came to lime-light before public launch. Despite initial negative feedback on screen fragility, Samsung fold recieved worldwide acceptance on it's relaunch, as being the best attempt for a folding phone by any smartphone maker in 2019.

Huawei Mate X was seen as strong competitor to Samsung Fold at it's showcase event, but it never got available to buy for common people, most probably due to U.S. ban on Huawei. 

Motorola Razr's re-introduction in late 2019 as folding screen phone revived nostalgia.

 LG took a more conserative approach with it's G8X ThinQ, launching it with two fully seperate screens held in case. Looking at leaked images of Samsung next foldable, folding screen phones future seems to be good. Folding screen phones in early stages are very expensive and defintely not for rough usage. It is very hard to comment on time frame till which we can expect a good folding screen phone in budget segment but this feature will likely remain a hot topic in 2020.

Low End of Phones - Feature Phones

Unlike smartphone, feature phone market has continued to grow in last three years. More than 400 million feature phones were sold globally in 2019 and this number is expected to rise to 1 billion by 2021. India and Middle East Africa capture more than half of global feature phone market share. iTel, Nokia, Jio and Samsung are major feature phone makers worldwide. Nokia showcased two interesting feature phones in 2019 - Nokia 2720 Flip and Nokia 800 Tough.

As the name suggests, Nokia 800 tough is IP68 and MIL-STD-810G certified making it dust, water and shock resistant. Powered by the Qualcomm 205 mobile platform, it runs on KaiOS. It is made for those who prefer weeks long battery life but still want to keep in touch of digital world with apps like google assistant, facebook and whatsapp.

On the other hand, Nokia 2720 flip has a claimsheel like design with small outer display for notifications, revealing a much larger inner display on flipping it open.   

IPL LIVE STREAMING & HOTSTAR

Being an avid cricket fan, I was not at all happy when IPL live streaming was disrupted with a Hotstar's "To continue Please SUBSCRIBE" kind of popup message on my laptop screen. I was surprised for a while since i could watch it for free on Hotstar app in my phone, most probably due to Jio subscription. I wondered what if Hotstar allows free live streaming of IPL matches on it's app for all smartphone users, keeping live streaming from laptop reserved for subscribed users. 

How can Hotstar benefit from such a discrimination?

Hotstar's subscription plans are just like that of any other media streaming service i.e. subscribe for ad free experience and exclusive content... and just like others, it makes money out of subscriptions and ads displayed on it's platform.

With ads rates being quite high due to viewership reaching as high as 10 million during some moments of an IPL match, Hotstar can go for all ad based revenue model on all devices for IPL live streaming. But the fact that they have subscription plan for ad free experience reveals the insight that subscription from an individual pays them more than ads being directed at him/her.

Well then they can have only subscription based option for IPL live streaming. This is also not an viable option for a country like India where only small proportion  of interested population is actually capable to pay for such plans. Intense competition in Indian smartphone market to capture larger market share has led to players getting involved in price wars. The 4G revolution in India by Reliance Jio's entry has led to India having cheapest 4G plans in the world. These two simultaneous events in last two 2 years, have led to huge population from tier-3 cities, tier-4 towns and villages to get online and enjoy live streaming for the very first time. If Hotstar opts for only subscription based model for IPL live streaming, they will miss out on ad revenue from this new audience.

The right option is to have both streams open as source of revenue i.e. getting people who are capable to subscribe and by directing ads on who are aren't.

By denying interested people to live stream IPL matches for free on big screens, they are either getting them to watch on smartphones or getting them to subscribe. But why big screens like P.C., laptops and T.V.s ?

The motive behind such a discrimination should be that with such a practise, Hotstar will be able to successfully segment it's market/user-base based on spending capabilities without actually knowing their viewer's income/wealth status and thus will be able to get people who are essentially capable, to pay for their services. 

Generally, laptop users are college students and working class professionals from tier-1 and tier-2 cities of India. These users also constitute a major portion of Indian youth population. It is proven that young population exhibit higher propensity to spend money on subscription based services and since these people reside in top tier cities, they also posses high spending capacity.

Moreover, If a person is live streaming on laptop or T.V., then there is a very high probability that person has subscribed to some broadband plan. This broadband plan subscription is enough to justify for his/her high-spending capability and very much increases chances of that person getting subscribed to one of the plans. This is how Hotstar will be able to segregate their users based on spending capability.

FEATURE PHONES : STILL ALIVE, BUT WHY ?

Nokia Banana phone
 Source : theverge

First of all, let's get some recent fact and figures out of the way...

According to Counterpoint Research, global feature phone shipments increased 3% annually reaching 112 million units in Q-3 of 2018. Global feature phone shipment grew consecutively for four quarters from Q-4 2017 to Q-3 2018 whereas smartphone market experienced a small decline in global shipments during the same period. 

Here is a graph depicting the contrast in shipments between smartphones and feature phone markets.

Image source: counterpointresearch

Where does sale of feature phone comes from?

Around 90% of feature phone market is in Asia and Africa. More specifically, Middle East and Africa (MEA) and India account for more than 70% of feature phone global sales. 

Reliance Jio created disruption in feature phone market with introduction of Jio Phone and Jio Phone 2, which drove global sales of feature phones in Q-1 and Q-2 of 2018. In Q-3 2018, Jio phone sales slowed down in India after the initial hype surrounding Jio phone of effectively free price tag. MEA emerged out to be the largest feature phone market owing to shipments growth rate of 32%.

Still wondering...How and why feature phones make a sizable and relevant market?

Affordability

There are still millions of low-income people in developing nations with basic phones. An upgrade from a basic phones to feature phone puts much smaller burden in pockets of these consumers as compared to an upgrade from feature phone to smartphone. Due to high purchase cost of smartphones, feature phones dominate smartphones in poor developing parts of the world. 

Ease of Usability

The problem with majority of old people is that they are very slow and reluctant in learning new things. Features phones have limited options, thereby making it much easier to learn to operate as compared to a smartphone. When compared to smartphones, one of the most compelling attributes of feature phones which makes it the best option for needs of old age people is big battery life.

A longer battery life is also particularly useful for people living in developing countries where a large population has no proper access to electricity and people are often dependent on charging stations.

4G Revolution

Just like smartphones, features phones are also now available with option of 4G connectivity. These 4G enabled feature phones are a compelling upgrade option for already existing feature phone users because they act as affordable option for these these low-income consumers to experience internet for the very first time. Partnership of Kai Os with feature phone OEM's has also brought several useful apps on these 4G feature phones like Whatsapp, Facebook, Youtube and Google assistant, which were smartphone exclusive some years ago.

         

BIGGEST TECH FLOPS OF 2018 !!!

Here is a list of some blunders in tech industry in 2018 that created quite a buzz among common people...

1. Windows 10 October Update

image source : https://www.techradar.com 

This has to be the biggest blunder of 2018 in terms of number of people it affected. Some users reported audio problems while others faced Blue Screen of Death. Update's adversity can be explained by fact that some users reported missing files from documents folder in C: Drive. This data loss issue was serious enough for Microsoft to stop update roll-out, only to resume it later on with another update to resolve issues. Considering the fact that more than 700 Million computer are running on Windows 10, how such a buggy update made it's way to computers worldwide? Microsoft should seriously make efforts to have robust testing procedures before public roll-out of any update.

2. The Red Hydrogen One

image source : https://www.planetofmobile.com/red-hydrogen-one/

This phone by Red Digital Cinema is a perfect example of how to screw up first product launch and create a negative brand image among people. Taking pre-orders with complete payment and then failing to release the product at the specified time-frame. Many product launch delays accumulated to around 14 months of delay in total. These delays are enough to kill the remaining excitement among audience and hype surrounding phone. A famous you-tuber SuperSaf even shared his bad experience when he failed to cancel his pre-order due to no-response from company. His video explaining the matter : RED Hydrogen One - My Preorder Experience. After the launch, there were more problems in final product than users would have liked. The biggest one of them was it's high price, close to $1300 which coupled with last-generation hardware specifications like 2017’s Qualcomm Snapdragon 835 processor made it even worse. Since Red is into making cinematography cameras, all the hype surrounding this device was around it's camera and display. The cameras turned out to be mediocre and holographic screen was cool gimmick. All in all, this product was a huge failure. 

3. Facebook Privacy Breaches

image source : https://www.theverge.com/

It came to public knowledge in March of 2018 that around 87 million people's data was leaked in a Facebook data breach. A company known as Global Science Research made Facebook application named "personality quiz" with purpose to collect user's data and sell it to another company named Cambridge Analytica, making it a clear violation of Facebook policies. This data was then used by Cambridge Analytica for social influencing efforts. In September, Facebook confirmed that as many as 30 million accounts had been hacked due to security issues.

BLACKBERRY KEY 2: WHERE IS THE KEY???

If you are unaware about Blackberry's comeback, here is a quick info-

After vanishing into thin air due to stiff competition from Android and iOS, Blackberry came to life when it entered into long-term brand licensing agreement with TCL Corporation and Optiemus Infracom. According to this hardware licensing partnership, Optiemus Infracom holds the right to produce Blackberry-branded smartphones in India, Bangladesh, Indonesia, Nepal and Sri Lanka while TCL everywhere outside these nations.

Blackberry KeyOne release in early 2017 followed by Key2 in mid 2018 laid the foundation for comeback of Blackberry mobiles.

Source:- https://blackberrymobile.com/storage/2018/03/03-1.jpg

I grew up in years during which phones got from being big and practically non-portable to small, everyday and everywhere devices. This post is written by a guy who never got a chance to own and use a blackberry mobile phone until December of 2014. This was mainly due to two very practical reasons - first me being underage for phone usage during blackberry phone's glory days (yes this was a thing back then, now we have toddlers handling smartphones like a pro) and second one is somewhat even valid till nowadays i.e. their affordability.

Talking about pricing and affordability, BB KeyOne came with launch-price tag of $549 and Key2 with an increment of $100 to the previous one. Well at-first pricing seems to be kind of okay, considering the fact that both of these are blackberry's flagship devices, and even more when we have Samsung and Apple breaking $1000 price ceiling with their latest flagship pricing. Until you look at specs-sheet, which looks like that of a mid-grade phone rather than a flagship device and totally unacceptable for launch price tag of phone. We have devices with same internal hardware specifications, costing less than half the price.

Well at this point, one might argue that Blackberry has always been a software company with security at it's core values and has been providing those services with in-built features in their phones. So aren't they charging premium price for those services which make Key2 the most secure Android device available for masses to purchase. Yes, this can certainly be one of the explanations.

Blackberry's target consumers consist of people who really need high level of security provided by their devices and a small group of rich nostalgic tech-savvy people. This is the case because all other people not listed above are far better-off buying some other phone in same price segment like that of Oneplus.

Considering the fact that people who sincerely require that high end level of security are the one that can carry only one device and are rich enough to spend on security (top-officials). These people are generally willing to have excellent end user-experience, which is lacking in both KeyOne and Key2.

Blackberry can take advantage of it's unique position of being one of the very few companies to cater to such an audience, especially in Android domain. They can provide better overall experience by having the best in class hardware available in their upcoming devices and launch them with even a higher price-tag than it's predecessors.         

Increasing the launch price, can deter other people to make a purchase. This situation can be handled by having a more affordable option, which Blackberry tried to do by having another model named Key2 LE. With lower price-tag of $400, Blackberry Key2 LE still can't be called an affordable and certainly not a value-for-money option in emerging markets like India, where there are phones with excellent price to performance ratio in $200-$300 price range.

When Blackberry was in it's glory days, people did not buy blackberry just because of baked-in high level security features but due to simple fact that a blackberry phone was host of very well implemented smart features found during those days (especially that tactile physical keyboard and BBM). Unless Blackberry comes out with a compelling option, people will find it hard to buy and recommend a blackberry. While Blackberry's USP (unique selling point) i.e. in-built security features might not be as desirable among audience as compared to other brands. Blackberry can still make a comeback with offerings that are justifiable for their launch price.