Dubai: The recently launched premium devices like Samsung Galaxy S5 and HTC One (M8) may have got great reviews, but there is no “wow” factor to force consumers to upgrade their old smartphones.
“They are pretty much on par with each other and manufacturers are focusing on stuffs that people care most — screen size, design, battery life and camera quality,” Hamza Saleem, senior telecom analyst at research firm International Data Corporation (IDC), told Gulf News.
The smartphone makers know what to focus on to lure customers but “real innovation” is not taking place.
If you compare the phones, he said “there is no doubt that S5 has a few cosmetic changes and are expected to sell more but overall, HTC has a beautiful design and the premium body”.
S5 has fingerprint scanner, heart rate monitor and battery life as pros compared to S4 but the fingerprint scanner feature, similar to iPhone 5S, was hacked by a Berlin-based Security Research Labs using a mould to fool the device and the same had happened to the sensor on Apple’s iPhone 5S.
Saleem said that many will use the phone to track heart rate when running or jogging with the phone. “They can use the gear watch to keep track and I doubt anyone will take the phone when jogging or running.”
According to a report, he said that four S5 phones can be made compared to the time taken to create one HTC One.
“In my perspective, HTC One is a better phone than S5 despite S5 having few more add-on features,” Saleem said.
Picture quality
According to Neeraj Seth, marketing manager at HTC Mena, HTC One has been selling very well since the launch.
“The HTC One [M8] is being touted as the next big thing and is already a big hit as well, owing to its smooth design and functionality. The best at HTC has indeed gotten better with this model, with everything from the user experience to picture quality riding well above expectations in the market,” said Nadeem Khanzadah, head of retail at Jumbo Electronics.
Given that both the Samsung Galaxy S5 and HTC One (M8) are amongst the latest and best Android options available in that price range, “we really have to pin it down to individual choice and brand perception, which will ultimately determine which phone will do better at the Gitex Spring Shopper and beyond,” he said.
According to Ashish Panjabi, COO at Jacky’s Electronics, innovation is happening in bits and pieces. What people are waiting for is to see the next set of form factors to emerge with the smartphones that are able to interact with wearable technologies.
On sales, he said that S5 will do better than HTC One.
“Users jumping from Galaxy S3 to S5 will notice a big improvement but when compared from S4 to S5, not big improvements. It is the same when compared to iPhones 5 and 5S. Consumers jumping one generation of devices will see noticeable changes,” he said.
Form factor
However, Saleem said that does not mean innovation has stopped. How much more can you innovate on a smartphone? The form factor cannot change, he said.
It can be argued that screen and the overall size have reached a practical maximum, which means vendors have to find another performance metric to entice users to pick up a new handset.
The developments which are taking place are only on screen, battery life and large camera mega pixels.
The UAE is “mouth driven, fashion oriented and show-off market,” Saleem said.
According to IDC, around 5.2 million phones are expected to be sold this year in the UAE, out of which around 3.5 million are likely to be smartphones. In 2013, total handset sales were 4.5 million, out of which 2.3 million were smartphones.
