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.