BY MOHAMMAD SHOEB
DOHA: With the cut-throat competition in the smartphone market, it has almost become a standard practice of most big players, especially those going neck and neck such as Samsung and Apple, to launch their flagship mobile phones simultaneously to bite into each other’s market share.
It has been noticed that Samsung prefers to launch its high-end products before or just a little after the launch of the next variants of Apple’s iPhones.
For instance, this year just before the launch of iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus, Samsung launched its two flagship products — Galaxy Alfa and Galaxy Note 4.
“Samsung’s both products fall in the category of high-end phones. Alfa has a relatively smaller screen with a metal finish which looks quite similar to Apple’s iPhone 5 and 5S, while Galaxy Note 4, with bigger screen, is competing with the latest launches of Apple (iPhone 6, and 6 Plus),” said an expert from the industry.
According to International Data Corporation (IDC) Worldwide Quarterly Mobile Phone Tracker, (in Q2, 2014), Samsung continued to be the leader with nearly 25 percent global market share of smartphone, followed by Apple and Huawei with 11.7 percent and 6.7 percent, respectively.
Other big players such as Lenovo and LG were in fourth and fifth positions with market share of 5.2 percent and 4.8 percent, respectively.
At a time when the worldwide smartphone market grew by 25.3 percent (year-on-year) in Q2, 2014, Samsung and Apple, due to stiff competition, lost their market shares to other rivals by 7.3 percent and 1.3 percent, respectively.
Loosing market share has compelled most big players to imitate each other and launch their products simultaneously.
In September, all big mobile phone companies, including Samsung, launched their flagship products to retain their market share.
“Big companies, such as Samsung, HTC and others prefer to launch their products close to the launch of Apple’s next variants, perhaps to take a bite on each other’s market share. Every year one can see the same scenario being repeated,” added the expert. HTC, another emerging player in the smartphone market, launched its flagship phones ‘HTC One (M8)’, ‘M8 Mini’ and ‘M8 eye’ recently. M8 eye is more a ‘selfie’ phone with two 13 mega-pixel cameras in front and back with separate dedicated flash.
Then Microsoft (formerly Nokia) has also launched its flagship phone ‘Lumia 730’ recently. It is yet another selfie-dedicated high-end phone by the company with 5MP front camera and several competing features, including the expandable memory facility of up to 128 GB (microSD).
“For most companies this has become the ideal time for launch when most economic activities pick up momentum as government and private organisations get back to business after long summer vacation and festive season,” said a senior official of a mobile distribution company, CGC, who did not wish to be named. The official said: “Since Qatar is an expatriate-driven market and September is the time when most people, including citizens, return from vacation, demand starts increasing after a relatively lull market for over two months.”
Apart from Samsung and HTC, electronics giant Sony has also launched its two flagship mobiles phones, Xperia Z3 and Xperia Z3 Compact, something people had been waiting for because of some of its great specifications such as protection against the ingress of dust and waterproof.
BlackBerry, the pioneer of smart communication, also launched its flagship phone ‘BlackBerry Passport’ in September, which is equally good and attracting customers due to its unique and contemporary features that are available in any Anroid-based smartphones. Its Capacitive Touch 3-row BlackBerry keyboard, square shape screen and the most secure communication network are some of the distinctive features not available in other phones of this segment. The Peninsula
