At its peak in 2017, the global smartphone market saw more than 700 brands fiercely competing. Fast forward to 2023 and the number of active brands (that have recorded sell-through volumes) is down by two-thirds to almost 250, according to Counterpoint’s Global Handset Model Sales Tracker, which has been tracking sales of these brands across more than 70 key countries.
So many good brands and good ideas kicked to the curb by the stranglehold Apple and Google have on the market. While many of these brands were mere OEMs, it also includes companies making their own platforms.
What has Google and Apple have to do with Android manufacturers’ race to the bottom?
If Microsoft could not muscle their way into the smartphone market, no one else has a chance.
kbd,
Yeah no kidding. The mobile market is so entrenched that even a monopolist like microsoft couldn’t break into the market.
The situation for alternatives has gotten even worse in the last couple years since the 5G upgrades. At least in the US major carriers have gone back to their bad old whitelisting practices. It’s not enough for a phone to be compatible with the network’s technical requirements, carriers including verizon and ATT actively reject connections from devices that aren’t officially whitelisted. This is a regression as previously with 3G networks carrier radio spectrum licenses required them to not discriminate against compatible devices.
https://www.pcmag.com/news/why-your-att-smartphone-may-suddenly-stop-working-soon
So with the 3G network shut downs many BYOD users ended up being blocked. It’s not enough to buy a “5G phone”, it has to be a whitelisted 5G phone. Unfortunately many like purism phones are compatible yet have not been whitelisted (and I wouldn’t be surprised if carriers want a kickback to get them whitelisted).
https://www.xda-developers.com/t-mobile-att-require-volte-phone-calls-shut-down-3g/
This is quite a large tangential rant, but it’s just infuriating that even if you develop a working alternative phone, it can be discriminated against by carriers. This is not an open market.
But Microsoft had a stranglehold on the mobile market for years. A great many PDAs shipped with Windows Mobile (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_Mobile) and it was a market leader for a while. Microsoft’s half-baked “Metro” migration with Phone 7 and ultimately Windows 8 is what doomed them. Had Microsoft been less bold and more iterative, we could have been looking at another Microsoft/Apple duopoly with Android being that weird OS Google bought and died within a few year, like all of Googles products…
The123king,
It’s funny you should say that, it’s this very dilemma I mention here…
https://www.osnews.com/story/137213/the-invisible-problem-text-editing-on-android-and-ios-sucks/#comment-10433026
This is the nature of “winner take all” economies. The incentive is to deprive the market of other winners It’s the antithesis of free market capitalism as a meritocracy.
The problem is the smart phone market is not profitable.
Ask LG and HTC.
Also it’s Apple and Samsung that have the hold, not Google. Anyone can make an Android device but if people don’t buy it on the margins are too low then there is no way a company can keep making devices.
Look at what happened to Ubuntu, they made Ubuntu touch and couldn’t even get Linux fans excited about it.
Funny thing here is the Smart phone market for years and years was basically BlackBerry and no one complained.
I was hyped for ubuntu touch. I couldn’t buy any hardware that ran it. I had it installed on my nexus 7 and gave it to my parents and they absolutely loved the thing until the device died of old age. It was the best non android linux tablet I’ve seen. In many ways better as the app store had all the standard linux games, which of course were free of cost and free of ads, while being very high quality and well adapted to touch. The battery life wasn’t as great as android, but fine in general. Totally workable capable tablet.
Windows Sucks,
It is profitable though, extremely so. But only the duopoly at the top is getting any of it. All alternatives platforms are fighting over a tiny fraction of 1% market-share and that’s what’s killing alternatives.
Google’s interest in mobile isn’t in selling hardware, it’s in selling ads, taxing developers on app sales, and promoting google services. They’re content with having OEMs sell the hardware as long as google controls the platform. It’s extremely beneficial to google that samsung and others are selling android, the more the better.
A tale as old as time. We saw exactly the same thing in the late 80’s/early 90’s as the computing landscape consolidated to the Microsoft/Apple duopoly we have today. It was inevitable, and it’s sad some novel platforms fell to the wayside, but they will still have their loyal followings, and will continue to live in their own circle of fans.