Time For A Little Customer Segmentation In Handset Design

Wireless

from the one-size-doesn't-fit-all... dept

Lots of people have been pointing out that traditional mobile phones don’t work very well for old people or very young people. In the last few months, it looks like the industry has finally started to take notice. It wasn’t that surprising that Korea led the way with more targeted handset design based on the age of users, but now firms around the world are clearly trying to figure out how to design phone handsets for people of all ages and lifestyles. While the idea isn’t new, what’s good to see is that the industry seems to at least be much more open towards the idea of offering a wider variety of handsets, rather than focusing on “one-size-fits-all” models. Of course, this also raises questions about manufacturing costs, since the economies of scale won’t be as big — but that could just push the handset design further towards cheaper Chinese manufacturers. The real issue is that the more diverse phones are better for the mobile carriers, since (they hope) phones that are better designed for subscribers will get more use, leading to more revenue. Of course, that doesn’t necessarily translate directly back to the handset makers who don’t make a cut of the ongoing data revenue. All this means that ongoing battle between the carriers and the handset makers is only likely to intensify.