Not listening...
"Demand for premium smartphones remained lower than for basic smartphones*
...
* Gartner classifies a basic smartphone as a "voice-centric" mobe with a 4-inch screen and a resolution of 720p or higher"
Given a modern 4-inch screen smartphone is more capable than an old 4-inch screen smartphone, I think the market is very clearly telling manufacturers what they want, just that it seems the manufacturers can't be bothered to listen and insist what customers want are phablets and thus complain when sales don't meet expectations...
It seems this is a variation on the netbook marketing failure, where vendors insisted that because the netbook was smaller and more portable than a notebook, it didn't need to be as powerful/capable as a notebook, yet still run the same application binaries (or in the case of Office Starter, slightly different binaries that further reduced the screen space available for user activities)....
Biting the hand that feeds IT
