The characteristics and strategies of the four major technology giants from the perspective of mobile phone products

The past week has seen a series of major events in the smartphone industry, from the much-anticipated release of the iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus to the significant price cut of the Amazon Fire Phone. Foreign media recently published an article by columnist Farhad Manjoo, which explores the characteristics and strategies of the four major technology companies, Apple , Amazon, Microsoft and Samsung, from the perspective of smartphone products.

The following is the main content of the article :

It was a big week for the smartphone industry. Apple released two new iPhones and a smartwatch that doubles as a phone on your wrist. Amazon slashed the price of its two-month-old phone. Microsoft, still struggling to find new apps and content for its struggling mobile platform, was rumored to be looking to spend big to acquire Minecraft developer Mojang. What can we learn about the characteristics and strategies of these three companies and Samsung through their smartphones?

In fact, we can still see a lot of things.

iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus

In 2007, the iPhone was launched and became popular around the world, igniting the global smartphone market. It also gave rise to a variety of startups with novel models, such as Uber, a taxi-hailing app that effectively connects service providers with mobile users. As Apple demonstrated at its new product launch conference, you may soon be able to complete offline payments through your iPhone.

The new iPhones show how Apple, under Chief Executive Officer Tim Cook, has stepped out of the shadow of its revered co-founder Steve Jobs, who loathed large phones, with the iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus having screens measuring 4.7 inches and 5.5 inches, respectively.

Jobs was also reluctant to give third-party app developers too much freedom to modify his precious product. Apple's new mobile operating system, iOS 8, allows users to customize some aspects, which may not be acceptable to Jobs. These changes show that Apple has become more open and more accessible - and it also shows that it is focused on ensuring that the iPhone remains the most profitable technology product in the technology industry.

Amazon Fire Phone

Amazon's late entry into the smartphone market this year feels like arriving at a New Year's party after the ball has dropped. Perhaps that's forgivable, considering how well CEO Jeff Bezos has led Amazon into new markets over the years: building a cheap, basic product and then crushing rivals one by one with price, customer service and scale.

The Fire Phone, however, is an anomaly. Amazon stuffed it with all sorts of bells and whistles that seemed unnecessary, including a head-tracking system that enabled 3D effects. Another major feature, Firefly, seemed designed only to make it easy and quick to buy things from Amazon.com.

Then there was the question of pricing. Amazon priced its fancy new phone at $199 with a two-year contract, in line with other high-end smartphones on the market. The price was clearly unsurprising, as people expected Amazon to continue its low-price strategy. The Fire Phone also failed to impress consumers. According to analysts, it sold only tens of thousands of units. Amazon recently slashed the price of the Fire Phone to just 99 cents with a two-year contract, seemingly confirming the news that the product's sales were sluggish.

However, Bezos has always been good at adjusting products. Therefore, it is too early to sentence Amazon phones to death.

Samsung Galaxy S5 and Galaxy Note 4

Samsung is considered a "fast follower" in the technology industry. You know, this term is often used to mock the lack of independent innovation. In the smartphone market, facing the rise of the iPhone, Samsung implemented the "sea of ​​​​machines strategy" and launched a series of mobile phones with software and hardware that are very similar to the iPhone. The strategy really worked: Samsung successfully surpassed Apple in sales and quickly became the world's largest smartphone company.

Samsung's smartphone profits still lag behind Apple's because many of the phones it sells are sold at low prices. However, Samsung's business also benefits from its constant product experimentation, trying out ideas that may seem silly at first, because no one knows which product will succeed.

In 2011, Samsung launched a product: the 5.3-inch smartphone Galaxy Note. At the time, many people thought the phone was too big, and the technology blog Gizmodo even mocked it, saying, "It's hardly designed for humans." However, consumers loved it, and the term "phablet" became increasingly popular. (The screen size of the new generation Galaxy Note is even 5.7 inches.)

The category is indeed popular: phablets have become a big part of the high-end smartphone market, and Apple's profits seem to be suffering as a result. This partly explains why Apple is launching a large-screen iPhone. Who are the fast followers now?

Microsoft Nokia Lumia 930

On the eve of Apple's iPhone launch in 2007, former Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer asserted that "there's no way the iPhone will ever get a significant market share." Then the iPhone came to market, and Microsoft has been lagging behind in the mobile market and has been struggling to catch up ever since. During this period, it has revamped its mobile operating system and acquired Nokia's mobile phone business. Now, the task of saving Microsoft's mobile business falls on current CEO Satya Nadella.

The company has done well: its mobile devices are now as good as those of its competitors. But it has suffered from the “network effect,” a phenomenon that makes popular tech products even more popular. It’s the same network effect that made Microsoft dominate the PC market: People buy Windows computers because they come with a full package of software—which in turn attracts developers to keep writing software for Windows because the platform has so many users.

However, due to Microsoft's late embrace of full-screen smartphones, the company's app store is seen as a secondary option by developers. The lack of applications on the Windows Phone platform has led consumers to be reluctant to buy Windows Phone phones, which has further dampened developers' enthusiasm, forming a vicious cycle. For Microsoft, it will not be easy to turn the situation around.

As a winner of Toutiao's Qingyun Plan and Baijiahao's Bai+ Plan, the 2019 Baidu Digital Author of the Year, the Baijiahao's Most Popular Author in the Technology Field, the 2019 Sogou Technology and Culture Author, and the 2021 Baijiahao Quarterly Influential Creator, he has won many awards, including the 2013 Sohu Best Industry Media Person, the 2015 China New Media Entrepreneurship Competition Beijing Third Place, the 2015 Guangmang Experience Award, the 2015 China New Media Entrepreneurship Competition Finals Third Place, and the 2018 Baidu Dynamic Annual Powerful Celebrity.