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China smartphone market suffers hard-landing, shipments decline 21% in Q1 2018

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Re: China smartphone market suffers hard-landing, shipments decline 21% in Q1 2018

#61

Post by loser777 »

nostalgeek wrote: post #58
gd2 wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Also apps do get updated, and when they do they sometimes grow by almost a 100 MB. Repeat that X times, and the RAM on the phone turns out to be insufficient for larger apps of the new now.

Facebook app was 600MB on my girlfriend's phone. Unbelievable. What the hell does Facebook need 600MB for? (granted it was the mostly the data but it made her phone run like crap because the data is stored in internal storage, not on SD card). I cleared the data and it was back to 150MB in less that an hour. So off course people feel like their phones run like crap with apps like that. I mean even a $50 phone today i…

This anecdote is hard to believe (the slows the phone down part) because unless the app is constantly hammering the storage system with I/Os even as a background process, storage usage doesn't mean it's actively slowing the Phone down. Also it turns out that caching people's photos, etc., will save a lot of bandwidth and improve loading times (especially precious on mobile). Those JPEGs add up quickly...

Re: China smartphone market suffers hard-landing, shipments decline 21% in Q1 2018

#63

Post by jdietrich »

klodolph wrote: post #27
bruceb wrote: post #15

Almost any $200+ phone made since 2015 has a pretty good camera, screen, speed for most people. Why upgrade when what you have is good enough? One used to check out gizmodo/engadget when a new phone came out but seems not anymore as "the new" is only incremental.

People upgrade because what they have becomes worse as time goes on. Maybe you don't get OS updates any more and you can't run apps you want, maybe you do get OS updates and your phone is now slower. Maybe your battery charge lasts less than a day and you don't know you can replace your battery or don't want to. Some people I know almost always end up with cracked screens and upgrade rather than repair, and some othe…

The Chinese market is different.

Chinese carriers offer minimal subsidies, so most customers are paying close to full retail for their phones and aren't tightly coupled to a two-year upgrade cycle. Used phones are a popular choice for value-oriented customers.

Repair is the norm rather than the exception, so most customers will replace a cracked screen or a weak battery rather than just disposing of their phone. Labor costs are relatively low and parts and documentation are widely available. Broken phones (especially iPhones) are frequently bought by dealers, repaired and resold.

The big Chinese brands offer relatively good long-term OS support, but that isn't hugely important for Chinese users. WeChat is the app in China (for many users, it's the only app they ever use) and it's extremely well optimised for older devices. The APK is a mere 60MB and it'll run smoothly on devices with a dual-core SoC and 1GB of RAM.

The US market has historically been the polar opposite of China, but it's creeping closer. Chinese manufacturers are making a push for the US market and consumers are starting to wise-up to the benefits of paying cash for a mid-range device rather than taking the "free" upgrade when their contract expires. The used market is flooded with two-year-old flagship handsets that will perform admirably for another few years with nothing more than a new battery.

Re: China smartphone market suffers hard-landing, shipments decline 21% in Q1 2018

#64

Post by akhilcacharya »

bruceb wrote: post #15

Almost any $200+ phone made since 2015 has a pretty good camera, screen, speed for most people. Why upgrade when what you have is good enough? One used to check out gizmodo/engadget when a new phone came out but seems not anymore as "the new" is only incremental.

I’m due for an upgrade but I’m refusing on account of new flagships not having 3.5 headphone jack.

Re: China smartphone market suffers hard-landing, shipments decline 21% in Q1 2018

#65

Post by Afforess »

akhilcacharya wrote: post #64
bruceb wrote: post #15

Almost any $200+ phone made since 2015 has a pretty good camera, screen, speed for most people. Why upgrade when what you have is good enough? One used to check out gizmodo/engadget when a new phone came out but seems not anymore as "the new" is only incremental.

I’m due for an upgrade but I’m refusing on account of new flagships not having 3.5 headphone jack.

Samsung flagship phones (Galaxy / Note) still have the 3.5mm jack.

Re: China smartphone market suffers hard-landing, shipments decline 21% in Q1 2018

#66

Post by dragonwriter »

Afforess wrote: post #65
akhilcacharya wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m due for an upgrade but I’m refusing on account of new flagships not having 3.5 headphone jack.

Samsung flagship phones (Galaxy / Note) still have the 3.5mm jack.

> Samsung flagship phones (Galaxy / Note)

Pedantically, the Samsung flagships are the Galaxy S and Galaxy Note series; there are a lot of other Galaxy series.

Re: China smartphone market suffers hard-landing, shipments decline 21% in Q1 2018

#67

Post by ethbro »

diminish wrote: post #5

After relentless growth we're about to arrive at a plateauing smartphone market. I wish I could read insights from experts on what to expect in coming years in smartphone market in light of similar markets which entered a no growth zone. Specifically what will happen to prices, market shares , unit sales, pace of innovation, competition, international growth, developer ecosystems. Anyone?

If you take these numbers as reliable, there's still plenty of room for penetration.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_smartph...

The biggest barriers are probably creating *G infrastructure in countries which don't have it widely deployed, and raising per capital GDP so people can afford devices.

If you're a Chinese OEM, you're prolly looking for volume increases over profit margin.

Re: China smartphone market suffers hard-landing, shipments decline 21% in Q1 2018

#68

Post by asddddd »

ahelwer wrote: post #56
tigershark wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You went from the slowest and more bugged phone that I ever had to one that it’s even slightly slower... it’s not really a good upgrade choice to do after 3 years.

Yep, I just switched from the Nexus 5X to Moto X4. Nexus 5X only has 2 GB of RAM, which on recent versions of Android means apps are swapped out and shut down constantly . If you were browsing the internet and switched to a different app, you were guaranteed to have to reload the webpage from scratch if you didn't switch back to your browser within 5-10 seconds. Plus Snapchat was unusable due to camera lag and high m…

I'm still using a Nexus 4 with 2gb of RAM, running android 7. 6 was terrible performance, but it's been running well with 7; no issues with constant swapping or the like. The camera is absolutely atrocious, and the 8gb internal storage is really showing it's age, but it still runs everything really well for me - probably since I've never used apps like Facebook. The biggest issue so far has been a flash sector failure or a cosmic ray or something that forced me to wipe everything and reinstall from scratch.

I would have upgraded it in the last year or two but I can't find a phone I really want, nearly everything produced these days is a much larger form factor.

Re: China smartphone market suffers hard-landing, shipments decline 21% in Q1 2018

#69

Post by baldfat »

jdietrich wrote: post #63
klodolph wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People upgrade because what they have becomes worse as time goes on. Maybe you don't get OS updates any more and you can't run apps you want, maybe you do get OS updates and your phone is now slower. Maybe your battery charge lasts less than a day and you don't know you can replace your battery or don't want to. Some people I know almost always end up with cracked screens and upgrade rather than repair, and some othe…

The Chinese market is different. Chinese carriers offer minimal subsidies, so most customers are paying close to full retail for their phones and aren't tightly coupled to a two-year upgrade cycle. Used phones are a popular choice for value-oriented customers. Repair is the norm rather than the exception, so most customers will replace a cracked screen or a weak battery rather than just disposing of their phone. Labo…

> consumers are starting to wise-up to the benefits of paying cash for a mid-range device rather than taking the "free" upgrade when their contract expires.

What "free phones" they are all leased now. There might not be a monthly fee but at the end of the lease their is a buy out to be paid. My wife's Essential phone (SHE HATES IT) is $6 a month for 24 months and then $430 if she want to keep this crash prone phone.

Re: China smartphone market suffers hard-landing, shipments decline 21% in Q1 2018

#70

Post by downrightmike »

Afforess wrote: post #65
akhilcacharya wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m due for an upgrade but I’m refusing on account of new flagships not having 3.5 headphone jack.

Samsung flagship phones (Galaxy / Note) still have the 3.5mm jack.

And as a bonus feature they sometimes light fires.
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