It is a highly competitive world for smartphone companies, with flagship model launches from the big brands becoming eagerly anticipated events. However, the sheen seems to be wearing off. Throughout this year, smartphone sales actually declined around the world for the first time since they captured our imagination more than a decade ago. Ironically, basic 'feature' phones grew in sales for the first time in many years.
According to Counterpoint Research’s market monitor service, which tracks the telecom world, feature phone sales grew right from the beginning of 2018, even as smartphone sales declined. Regular phones now constitute 23 per cent of all phones sold around the world.
India is one of the biggest feature phone markets, along with Africa. Battery life is one of the reasons analysts provide, with electricity still being erratic in many parts of the developing world. In many remote areas of Africa, people pay money to charge their phones at 'charging stations'. Another reason given is that, particularly in India, feature phones have much better battery life than smartphones. Feature phones are used as a secondary device for calling by many users on account of their battery life.
While the general belief was that users tend to migrate to smartphones at the first given opportunity, increasingly, that doesn't seem to be the case. Older people, who are not so tech savvy, prefer sticking to their feature phones. Low quality of entry-level smartphones, low purchasing power of users in places like India and Africa, as well as the robust build of feature phones, are some of the other reasons. “Also, with 4G feature phones in the market, most popular applications like WhatsApp, Facebook and YouTube can be accessed on these basic devices, which is enough for [this] segment of users,” says Counterpoint research analyst Varun Mishra.
The return of Nokia, in its new avatar as Nokia HMD and its launch of stylish looking feature phones is also touted to be a significant reason for this change in trend, just like the impact of Jio in the Indian market earlier.
