Smartphone Market

Amazon VP Blames Pricing for Fire Failure, Customer Feedback Says Otherwise

After a tumultuous launch and dismal sales figures, the Amazon Fire Phone is officially a failure. TechCrunch reported that “Amazon’s SVP of Devices David Limp told Fortune the big issue was a miscalculation on pricing.” The Amazon Fire was originally put on the market for $199, then the price was dropped to 99 cents on September 8th. However, a sustained drop in delight came with the drop in price. Since consumer delight continues to drop, even after the price was significantly cut, it does not appear that a “miscalculation on pricing” was the Fire Phone’s biggest issue.

Consumers reported several problems with the Fire Phone ranging from an inelegant interface to slow performance. You can read about our take on What Extinguished Amazon’s Fire Phone Sales in this earlier blog post. While CNet reported that “Limp said that the Fire phone is selling better post-price cut than it had been before, by a significant margin,” consumer feedback continues to become more negative. Amazon experienced a similar pattern with their Kindles, as the early models saw several problems which were fixed as time went by. Though Amazon has expressed their efforts to “keep iterating software features to get it better and better,” these improvements are not seeing increased delight.

Argus Insights has been tracking the progression of consumer reactions to the Amazon Fire Phone since its launch, and will continue to analyze its progress. If you are interested in the competitive landscape of the entire smarthphone market, take a look at our Monthly Smartphone Report. For more information about this product, any other product, brand, or retailer, access to our data, or custom analysis and consultation, please contact Argus Insights.

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Did the Green Peace Protest Send the Amazon Fire Phone into the Red?

There has been a new development in the failed launch of the Amazon Fire phone. It has been reported that a majority of negative consumer reviews for the Amazon Fire phone are a result of a Green Peace inspired protest, and are written by “environmentalists unhappy with the fact that Amazon’s massive cloud computing infrastructure is powered by coal.” Here at Argus Insights, we have been tracking consumer perception of the Fire phone since its launch. After investigating the nature of negative reviews we found that while Green Peace inspired negative reviews did impact unfavorable perception, plenty of consumer disapproval stemmed from other issues with the phone.

After sorting out the Amazon Fire phone reviews driven by the Green Peace protest, the lack of consumer satisfaction remains evident. The Green Peace ‘spam storm’ temporarily drove down the product delight score, but the impact of those negative reviews were quickly normalized.

Argus Insights is dedicated to providing quality data. After taking Green Peace’s protest of the Amazon Fire phone into account, we can confidently report that unhappy environmentalists were not its ultimate downfall. For more information about how product perception is influenced by social scandal, access to our data, or for custom reports on any product, brand, or market we cover, please contact Argus Insights.

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AT&T Misses Estimates, Cuts Forecast, Adds More Fuel to Fire Phone

Scott Moritz’s coverage of AT&T’s recent miss of Wall Street expectations is just another bit of evidence that launching a new handset on AT&T’s network has not worked out well for AT&T or the handset manufacturer. The graph below demonstrates that AT&T is not alone in this descent, as every Smartphone retailer except T Mobile saw a drop in consumer delight from Q2 to Q3. As retailers are fighting to maintain subscribers, it appears they are sacrificing service as their new and current consumers are reportedly less satisfied.

After Amazon’s Fire Phone underperformed earlier this year with AT&T as its exclusive retailer, the bad news keeps coming. While AT&T is still the most loved retailer on this chart, they saw a drastic drop in NPS. AT&T saw a growth of “785,000 monthly subscribers,” but they are losing revenue as “7 percent of customers…brought their own devices instead of buying one.” This, along with other factors, reportedly drove the average AT&T customer bill (excluding installment payments) down 8%. The Quarter brought less money for AT&T, less new handset sales for manufactures, and less delight for consumers.

Consumer delight is dropping across retailers in the Smartphone market as retailers are participating in a “pricing battle” to “protect their subscriber base.” Argus Insights will continue to track this battle in the smartphone market and keep you updated. For more information about any retailer, brand, or product across any of the sectors we cover, please contact Argus Insights. If you interested in free weekly insights about Smartphones, Wearables, or Home Automation, sign up for our Weekly Newsletter.

Rumors of Sony’s Death Knell in Smartphones are Widely Exaggerated

Takashi Mochizuki recently published an article that Sony has once again cut their sales targets for mobile devices, which was a prudent move for Sony given the global competition they face. But hold in there, they aren’t dead yet. Our analysis shows that Sony has actually gained Mindshare in Q3 2014, just not at a rate to move the needle on quarterly expectations. Sony still lags behind all other handset brands in terms of buzz volume, but saw a spike in Net Promoter Score. This means that while their products are not widely discussed, the few consumers reviewing them are delighted. Motorola experienced a similar resurgence thanks to the Moto G and Moto X. The increasing delight surrounding Sony and Motorola show that consumers do not need the prestige that comes with an iPhone of Galaxy smartphone; in fact, they are enjoying less popular handsets more.

Pitting Sony against smartphone giants Apple and Samsung in terms of consumer interest paints a grim picture. However, if we measure Sony against themselves, it is clear that their mindshare is growing. The thin grey line above the giant block that is Samsung represents consumer interest by way of review volume for Sony Smartphones over the past 2 years. This line is slowly but surely growing thicker as Sony is commanding more interest.

While Sony is clearly not as popular as Apple and Samsung, they are seeing a different type of growth. People cannot stop talking about iPhones and Galaxy phones in general, but consumers cannot stop saying good things about Sony smartphones. It is one thing to be popular, but a few delighted allies can go a long way.

We will continue to track Sony’s progress along with consumer perceptions of Motorola, Apple, Samsung, and others. Please contact Argus Insights if you would like more specific information regarding any smartphone brands or products, or information about any other sectors we cover. If you want more information about the market as a whole, you can order our Monthly Smartphone Report or sign up for our free Weekly Newsletter. Let us tell you how to make consumers happy to make your business even happier.

Internet of Things Growth Will Slow Until We Include Internet of Humans™

IoT, Internet of Things, Connected Home, Connected Car, the list of labels for the “Next Big Thing(s)” goes on for pages. But it’s missing something, a critical ingredient that mainstream tech companies have been glossing over for years, the Human. We have not yet be subjugated by Skynet nor been brought low some rampant AI deciding humans are best as batteries to fuel their galactic ambition. We’re here, in the flesh more often than not, increasingly nurturing the growing network of “Internet Things” that are nosing their ways into our lives. These IoT 1.0 devices are more needy than a colicky baby crossed with a full litter of hungry Chihuahua puppies, demanding our attention to keep them charged, responding to notifications, answering deep philosophical questions like “Which John Cusak Movie Are You Mostly Like to Get Trapped In An Alternative Universe In?”, consuming more and more of our mindshare.

(Sorry Twitter just pinged me to ask if I knew Barak Obama and if I’d like to follow him)

This has to stop. IoT will stall out and fail if we don’t stop and address the needs of the Internet of Humans first. A house full of smart sensors is terrifying, not because of the privacy concerns, but because each of these devices will increasingly rely on me to take care of them in order for their massive marketing message of big data enabled domestic bliss to eventually reach sentience, I mean fruition. Think about it, one of the most returned items in consumer electronics is the WiFi router, typically in working order, because the market continually fails to design one that is foolproof to set up. A common consumer complaint we see in our tracking of connected devices at Argus Insights is the initial set up of the internet pipe to any connected device, being set-top box, smart thermostat, automatic cat feeder, or political pollster targeting Nerf gun.

(sorry my refrigerator just asked if I could move the WiFi router so it can update it’s firmware)

The gnashing of teeth by befuddled users crossing the desert of connectivity to reach to promised connected home of their dreams bleeds through their narratives to the rest of the market as fair warning. Then, once it’s set up, there is a never ending symphony of firmware or mobile app updates to orchestrate. Each new IoT device carries with it a custom app to sit along with the other stand alone apps on my increasingly dumb and slow smartphone as each of these “walled garden” apps independently requests more information than necessary and consumes by data plan by oversharing with the mothership how many cheerios were in my bowl this morning. Apple’s Homekit hopes to corral all of these disparate siloed experiences inside their walled garden in neat rows but that view continues the only work for part of the market.

(sorry, got pinged again, this time because my neighborhood social network decided I needed to see another notification about a lemonade stand someone set up last week)

I don’t mind if the value I receive from the relationship with my IoT devices outweighs the psychic, financial and yes, at times, emotional cost of maintaining these devices. We aren’t there yet with most products. And until we start designing for the Internet of Humans™, the growth of the Internet of Things market will be limited by the bandwidth of most important link in the value chain, us. That’s what we do at Argus Insights, analyze and monitor the Internet of Humans™. That means our clients are poised to win out over those that are ignoring IoH in the coming struggle between connected devices and connected humans.

(gotta run, the automatic bird feeder is tweeting that it’s being ravaged by squirrels again)

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