Today Motorola reported less than expected earnings and dropping market share for its Android smartphones. While other companies that produce android devices such as Samsung and HTC shipped any where from 20-50% more units last quarter than the one before, Motorola's shipments only increased by 7%, causing a drop of 3% in their market share. In my opinion, this is primarily due to a few reasons.
1. The horrible pentile displays.
The first thing that a customer sees when they turn on the device is the screen. While Apple ships their phones with beautiful IPS displays, Samsung with Super AMOLED Plus screens, and HTC with SLCD, Motorola ops for the abhorrent pentile matrix technology. This screen tech makes viewing angles worse and pixel density 35% lower than displays with the same resolution. So when a consumer is in the store comparing phones, the Motorola phones look less vibrant and and more pixelated. This is an easy fix. Just ship the phones with a normal RGB display, not a RGBG.
2. Motoblur
Android as an operating system is hard enough for regular consumers to use, but MotoBlur just makes it worse. Of course, after all of the bad press it gets them, they can't call it MotoBlur anymore, but it's all the same software. Motoblur is slower, uses more battery life, and is harder to use than competing skins on Android. Regular consumers don't want to have to hassle with a harder to use software, and Geeks don't like the lack of speed. It's a lose-lose proposition. Fortunately, another simple fix. Go with stock Android. See that wasn't so hard.
MotoBlur- top
HTC Sense- below
3. Advertise More!
I haven't seen an advertisement for a Motorola phone in so long it isn't even funny. and when they do decide to put an ad out, the ads all stink. They need to sink some money into a good marketing division. Remember the good old days of the Droid does commercials? Those worked. Go back to that.
That's all I can think of right now. I'll rant some more later if I think of anything else. Motorola has some good hardware, they just have to back that up with good software.
Sub pixels do not make a difference and ads are done by carriers.
ReplyDeleteSub pixels make a huge difference. And manufacturers also do ads. Please fact check your comments.
ReplyDeleteWhat makes up an image? Pixels. What are subpixels? Sub retinal points of light your eyes interpret as the colors. The key point here about sub pixels is that you cannot see them so they do not make a difference assuming same pixel count. If you can show me a single US phone commercial without carrier branding all over it I might believe you that the manufacturers do the ads.
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