#212. Why more and more people are buying premium smartphones

Hello.

For more than a month I have been walking with the Galaxy S23 Ultra, trying to form an opinion about the smartphone. Some moments evoke

delight. For example, the battery is phenomenal.Typing this text, I realized that after measuring the battery life, I left the battery charge limit to 85%. I forgot to turn it off, but in my work scenarios, the device is discharged from 85% to 40% maximum per day.

Something in the smartphone, of course, is annoying.Here, as an example, I can cite the operation of a fingerprint scanner or the lack of a retinal scanner, which was on my past Galaxy Note 9. About the scanner, I will say that the Xiaomi 12T Pro sensor works faster, and most importantly, it always recognizes my finger, while Samsung picky. The lack of a retinal scanner is annoying when paying with Samsung Pay. Now you definitely have to take off your gloves to confirm the payment, while before the retinal scanner helped out.

And most importantly, I'm still trying to get used tonew 200 MP camera, and so far, unfortunately, it does not work. Take a look at the photos of the Oppo Reno8 T 5G smartphone taken with the Galaxy S23 Ultra. Frankly, they are terrible. Starting from the first photo, where the box of the smartphone is blurred, and the smartphone itself is oversharpened. And all other photos are the same. They are a strange mixture of blur and oversharp.

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Walked in the evening around PetropavlovskayaPetersburg, and it turned out that our small company had Samsung Galaxy S10+, Galaxy S21+ and Galaxy S23 Ultra. Let's discard the Galaxy S21+, because in terms of the main camera it does not differ much from the S10+ (all the same 12 MP). But let's look at a comparison of night photos between a February 2023 and March 2019 smartphone. 4 years difference, after all.

S10

S23

Let me remind you that the S23 Ultra shoots on a 200 MP camera, compressing, or scientifically pixel-binning, 16 pixels in 1 to 12 MP. And the Galaxy S10 + shoots immediately at 12 MP, because there is such a module.

I must say right away that both photos are good. You can now print on postcards to lure tourists to St. Petersburg.

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S23 Ultra photo stands out more saturatedflowers. And here it is not clear whether the S23 Ultra has a better dynamic range, or whether the algorithms tweaked the saturation. But what about the details? Let's take a look at these couple of photos. Again, overall, both photos are beautiful. But what if we enlarge the images a little? For example, suddenly you want to crop. Real scenario, right?

S10

S23

And here the Galaxy S23 Ultra is a complete mess:you can't see the windows on the cathedral. And here again they will tell me that it was necessary to choose shooting at 50 MP or 200 MP, but the trouble is that the smartphone offers to shoot at 12 MP by default. And it's cold outside, I have neither the strength nor the desire to take off my gloves and climb the settings.

Don't write me down as a Galaxy S23 haterUltra. I'm still confident that I can find an approach to a smartphone. And, frankly, well, it can’t be that the flagship of 4 years ago shoots in the same way (add saturation in the photo editor, and that’s it), like the newest S23 ULTRA. That one was S10 PLUS, and here is ULTRA. And the fool understands that ULTRA is better than PLUS.

S23 Ultra owners can share their impressions of working with the camera in the comments. Well, or explain what exactly I'm doing wrong and how to shoot correctly.

Growth of the premium smartphone category

As you can see, I'm pretty thoroughstudying Galaxy S23 Ultra. There are two reasons for this. Firstly, a smartphone is a working tool for taking photos and videos, which then appear in both editorial and commercial materials. Secondly, the price of flagship smartphones is constantly growing. It's a little funny, since it's much easier to buy a relatively inexpensive smartphone these days. This category has significantly improved in terms of quality, while prices have decreased. And if I needed a smartphone up to 25 thousand, then I would take realme or Infinix. I would have saved and did not know the troubles.

In the case of flagships, the situation is the opposite.With each generation, the price tag is increasing, and there are fewer significant changes. All the more surprising is data from Counterpoint Research stating that premium smartphones are on the rise, while overall sales of all smartphones are down 19% yoy.

The smartphone market shrank to the level of 2013-2014, that is, it rebounded 10 years ago.

There are a couple of things to note about the schedule.Firstly, the premium category refers to smartphones with a PURCHASE price of more than $600 (not to be confused with the price on the shelf). The graph reads as follows: premium smartphones occupy 21% of the market in units and 55% in revenue.

Counterpoint Research offers the followingexplanations for the growth of the premium category. First, Counterpoint rightly notes that the current difficult economic situation has so far affected wealthy buyers to a lesser extent. Plus, the update cycle of smartphones has been superimposed here. Prior to this, wealthy buyers entered the market at the time the pandemic began, that is, in 2020, 3 years passed - the average life of a smartphone - and people came for new devices.

Another reason is buyers from developing countries.countries that have already changed 3-4 smartphones and are now ready to try something premium. This explanation seems to me more than controversial. However, I like the idea that the smartphone becomes the central and often the only gadget in life and people are willing to spend more on it. We just discussed this point on the example of the decline in the popularity of Windows last week.

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Counterpoint Leads Premium Android Chartand iOS smartphones. This chart shows that people are choosing iPhone over Android. This is exactly the data that Tim Cook loves to emphasize when he says that Apple is seeing a record number of defectors from the Android camp.

The chart above can be more easily interpreted asbuyers want to get through tough times with the iPhone, as it's a smartphone with a longer lifecycle than Android. Apple has supported the iPhone for 5-6 years. For example, the new iOS 16 is available for the iPhone 8 introduced in 2017. While Android smartphones live 4 versions of Android and 5 years of security patches. And this is a new trend, which is not yet known to all buyers. Plus is still less than Apple.

The idea that buyers are looking for a safe havento wait out the crisis, the chart below also confirms, which shows that Xiaomi premium smartphones sank by 40%. People are not willing to pay for Xiaomi premium in times when money has to be counted.

HONOR and Google should be ignored.In both cases, the low base effect plays a role: both manufacturers have a market share of less than 1%. About HONOR, it must be said that the main sales are in China, where the company is trying to replace the falling Huawei.

Counterpoint confidently says that in 2023the Android market may bounce back due to the growth in the number of models with a flexible screen. Let's see. In my opinion, a serious fall is more likely. Here is Apple, whose iPhone 14 is no different from the iPhone 13. I already gave this chart, where Apple’s 4th quarter (and this is the main quarter in which the company sells 2 times more iPhones than in other quarters) does not wondered.

And, of course, if buyers stock up in 2022year, it is unlikely that in 2023, when it is already significantly shaking, they will run after new smartphones. We will see the maximum sales of the iPhone in the 4th quarter, provided that the iPhone 15 surprises.

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Updating Android smartphones: is it possible to wait out the crisis with them?

In the section above mentioned that Apple supportssmartphones for 5-6 years, and Samsung has launched a support system that includes 4 versions of Android and 5 years of security patches. To Samsung's credit, it must be said that this is the first manufacturer to extend the program not only to flagships, but also to A-series smartphones, including the A34, which, in general, can be considered an entry-level smartphone.

For example, let's take Pixel backgrounds, which used to bewere considered the best option for those who want long-term support. Surprisingly, Google supports its devices less than Samsung. For example, the Pixel 7 will get Android 3, ending updates in October 2025, but will continue to receive security patches until October 2027.

If you take Oppo and OnePlus, then there the manufacturers promise 4 versions of Android and 5 years of security patches, but only for premium models.

In turn, Xiaomi, depending on the status of the smartphone, offers up to 3 Android updates and up to 4 years of receiving security patches.

Realme offers 3 versions of Android and 4 years of security patches. Again, it all depends on the price of the smartphone. Cheap models will receive a maximum of 1 year of updates.

TECNO and Infinix have an update policy in the making. In the meantime, we can say that the flagships will receive 2 versions of Android.

HONOR offers 3 versions of Android and 5 years of security patches.

In the case of android update makers −this is always a delicate point, since the update policy depends on the status of the smartphone. Flagships get more support than mid-range models. At the same time, even flagships become less supported over time. For example, models at the end of their life cycle receive security patches not every month, but in a rollup package once a quarter or every six months.

Here Apple is still ahead. The company, however, has a minimum of cheap models (SE line).

Light phone

It's pretty funny to watch Gen Z games of nostalgia and alphas (alphas are those who come after generation Z, that is, young people under the age of 16).

If millennial hipsters asretro gadgets are chosen by vinyl players or consoles like Sega and Dendy, then generation Z uses push-button smartphones for nostalgia. Although it is more correct to say that, like the millennials who explained the commitment to vinyl with a warm tube sound, Gen Z has a more weighty argument. Not some kind of nostalgia, but concern for mental health.

We already talked about the Luddites club inUSA. These are teenagers and students who fundamentally refuse smartphones, trying to live “old school”: no deliveries, but trips to the store, no social networks, but only books, etc.

On thematic resources, even materials are published that a new era of push-button dialers is coming. This is wrong. Button accounts for less than 3% of sales from smartphones. And every quarter, sales are down.

But demand creates supply.And smartphones appear on the market that take care of the mental health of their owner. An example is the LightPhone 2. It's a tiny smartphone with an eINK screen, designed for only basic things: calls and SMS. And also the smartphone can be used to distribute 4G LTE Internet via Wi-Fi.

I wanted to talk about Light Phone, becausethe company is gradually abandoning its own concept. Initially, the smartphone had calls, SMS, a calculator and a music player (no streaming, music must be uploaded in the old fashioned way)

However, very little time has passed, and inThe Twitter company is proud to announce that Light OS now has a calendar. I agree, it's boring without a calendar. But in addition to the calendar, there was also GPS-navigation. Also, users are actively writing petitions on the official website, on the basis of which the company promises to eventually add WhatsApp, Telegram and Signal instant messengers to the phone, as well as Spotify streaming, a weather application, etc. The situation with the Light Phone is another proof that push-button "stupid" dialers are a thing of the past and are not needed even for those who want to take care of "mental health".

By the way, if among the readers there are those who abandoned the smartphone in favor of a push-button phone, then by all means tell us.