Apple alert as half China's fanbois consider switch to Galaxy S4 It could be sweaty palm time at Cupertino after new research revealed that more than half of China’s loyal fanbois are thinking of switching their iPhones to a Samsung Galaxy S4, according to new data from market watcher TrendForce. The Taiwanese firm’s research arm Avanti interviewed a representative sample of 3,000 …
Exactly. No iPhone supports China Mobile's version of 3G (TD-SCDMA) There are millions of iPhones purchased at full price used on that network at sluggish 2G (Edge only!) speeds, owned by people who are probably tired of seeing their friends zipping along at 3G speeds with 4G TD-LTE around the corner. If the next iPhone supports it, the numbers in this survey would undoubtedly change a lot. If they continue to not support China Mobile's standards, Apple will eventually lose a lot of those customers. Kind of a big deal on a carrier that has 3/4 of a BILLION customers!
If Apple supports it and makes a deal with China Mobile, they will surely end up growing share in China. Right now, no one knows whether Apple's demands or China Mobile's demands are the holdup for why they have been talking for several years but never reached a deal. At some point someone will have to blink. Maybe the numbers in this survey will cause Apple to blink.
Samsung S4, HTC One and the iPhone are all considered high end devices, but luxury items are a different kettle of fish.
Luxury items cost more, are made with more expensive materials and have more of an exclusive feel to them in that not everyone has one.
The S3/4 is made of plastic, pretty much free on a contract, costs less overall and everyone has one. It is a high end phone but it is not a luxury purchase.
The HTC One and the iPhone actually fit the bill much better, being both high end and a luxury more exclusive phone.
The S3/4 will eventually become what the Blackberry became, the Burberry Chav phone of the masses.
The fact* the S4 will blow both the HTC One and iPhone away in sales proves one thing - quantity has it's own quality.
*My emphasis.
The fact eh? No fanboism here then... A few weeks after launch, it's now a fact that the Galaxy IV is going to beat the world's top-selling smartphone. You have decided, and the market will follow!
I don't say it isn't possible, or even likely. Samsung joined the mobile market late, and hit number one in ten years. The SIII outsold the iPhone for one quarter, if I remember right. Although that was the quarter before a new iPhone was released. Let's see what the market does.
The most I ever paid for a phone was about £800, it was largely made of plastic and assembled by Samsung (on behalf of B&O).
At £800 it was not a luxury phone where as at £15 000 I would assert that the Vertu is a luxury phone.
How much does an iPhone cost, what percentage of the shell is titanium?
Surely it's only worth asking people who are about to get a new phone whether they're considering buying a particular model, rather than several thousand assorted Apple owners, some of whom presumably have only had their devices for a few months.
I mean, I assume most sensible people keep a phone for three, four, five years before changing, and then they look around to decide what is best for them from the phones available at the time.
Don't they? Or am I unusual?
I think you might be in the minority there! Many people I know upgrade the same week the contract ends, If not before. Two of my friends are planning to buy themselves out of their contract early to get the S4 at a cost that exceeds what they would have paid to stay in the contract until end.
I think mobile phones have stopped being mere tools quite some time ago. It's no longer about what is best for your circumstances but rather about how many pixels there are per square inch or the fact that it might be 12% thinner etc etc.
So the Reg is reporting a survey by a company which owns DRAMExchange, which as Samsung are facing a shortage DRAM chips right now, stands to gain from the fact they will have to go to the open market to buy DRAM chips for every additional S4 sold. No conflict there then.
DRAM-Exchange make money from the sale of the very chips Samsung need right now and is expected to sell in volumes of multiple millions. So you don't think it's a clear conflict issuing reports on said device? You don't think there is a substantial chance this ranks as one of the many, many instances of commercially influenced "reports" to be found out in the wild west of veracity otherwise known as the Internet. Right OK. I have here a leprechaun I need to sell.
Why buy yourself out of a contract to tie yourself into a new one? just BUY the bloody phone, it is cheaper usually in the long run (although i am only getting the s4 phone half way through a contract because my little boy decided my phone needed to hit a concrete floor at high velocity....)
Just out of interest, those that buy your own (I used to sometimes in the UK, now live in the US) do you find any annoying limits on payg services? I was looking at doing this again but I found that (unsurprisingly) the celcos hamstring payg plans with stuff like no off network roaming , crap support, more expensive data etc. Just curious if you found the same if you are in the US? thanks!
True, but then you have to qualify it by the amount of money people have to spend on luxuries and how sane they are as so whether they will go without something they need to buy an iphone 5 or whatever. The latter is probably a wash between east and west, on the former the US and Europe have more disposable income to spend, at least for now. 20 years in the future I don't doubt the picture could be very different as China ends up with the volume and the money.
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"Wanting stuff for free" is a cancer.
People should want to make one self worthy of something. That doesn't mean paying overprices to someone who want's to benefit on such people. But people who just want's everything for free without investing anything are the people who will be behind the biggest crises we yet will have to endure on this planet.
It's greed at it's peak.
There is a certain amount of resentment in China about things American (continual war, Spratly Islands, etc) and Samsung is in a good position to exploit this.
Not only that, Samsung knows how the Chinese mind works.
Take multiple SIM phones. The West questions the need for multi-SIM phones but there has always been a market for the oddball/ecentric accessories in China. A multi-SIM phone user typically has one SIM for regular use, another for family and yet another for the Spare Tyre/Tire (girlfriend) - all active at the same time.
Apple would most likely have a moral fit, if it thought some features were being used for extra-marital affairs or placing bets.
Farmers frequently carry basic smartphones so they can monitor market prices, as do other resource suppliers. They might not have running water or main electricity in their basic houses but they will never give up their solar powered cell phones.
"The plebs are starting to catch up!
I've been saying it for years, the iFase is over before it begun(sic)"
You have been saying many things for years, and it would be better if you hadn't. On the rare occasions that anyone can actually work out what you're trying to say, it is seldom worth the effort, or actively offensive.
I'm just back from Hong Kong. On a trip on the MTR or underground it is striking just how common big screen Samsung phones are. And also how many Grans are using iPhone 4s. It seems the move to Samsungs is well under way and the grandmothers are benefiting from the hand-me-down iPhones...
I know many people who have moved away from iPhone to Android, people who were massive fanbois. The reason? Aside from a higher price tag each time and some gimmicks (and often faults), the iPhone itself seems no different than it was in 07' because it is exactly the same non-customisable tiled interface. The 'intuitive' (as they say) nature of it only applies while you are learning to use it and quickly becomes irrelevant once you realise there is no more to it than what you see.
It's a similar story with OSX on Mac, except OSX has the benefit of being beneficial to certain users (you know who I mean, Mr 'I can only do my graphic design on a Mac'). In phone terms people will put up with the dodgy apps and malware in order to have some control over what they see and do rather than Cupertino calling all the shots.
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