Mid-range smartphones are on the verge of extinction!?

Smartphones (Mid-Range) – Over the last few weeks, we have been commenting on the way in which the world of smartphones has been evolving after the COVID-19 pandemic that changed our lives so much. But what impresses me most is the way in which consumers’ demands and willingness to spend money have changed in the last 3~4 years.

We have a lot of good people who for years thought with all the air in their lungs that they would never spend more than €300 or €400 for a smartphone, but now they have an S23 Ultra or iPhone 15 Pro in their pocket.

In fact, have you seen the number of high-end smartphones you see on the street these days? It’s absolutely incredible, and of course, it points to a revolution in the market.

Nobody has low or mid-range smartphones anymore!?

For many curious years, it was completely normal to see the “normal” consumer always opting for models capable of offering a lot for little money. We are talking about smartphones that normally always came from “low-cost” ranges from big brands, such as RealMe (Oppo), Redmi (Xiaomi) or POCO (Xiaomi).

We had lots of examples of devices that sold like hot cakes, such as the Redmi Note 10 Pro, and this is also the case with the many versions of the Poco F and X. For a long time, the market was completely flooded with this type of device. wallet friend, which many of us liked to call “BBB” (Good, Beautiful and Cheap!).

But… Nowadays… Things are not like that anymore!

This is obviously very much my experience and as such yours may be a little different. But, in recent years, especially this year 2023, it is undeniable that the “normal” consumer now prefers to spend more money to have a superior product.

It’s an interesting market evolution! Because, either one or the manufacturers were not able to adapt to the new levels of demand. Or else, they are choosing not to adapt, to take consumers to the higher ranges, where there is more margin.

In other words, there are some reasons why this is happening.

After all, everything that was considered a “good and cheap” smartphone became almost unbelievably expensive. In fact, many of the models that previously cost ~€200 have seen their new generations raise their prices to basically double (~€400).

However, despite the price increase, its performance level has not increased significantly. In fact, in some cases, the new generation of any smartphone has become more expensive, it may even have brought better finishes in terms of construction quality, but in terms of day-to-day performance, which is what really matters… Things stayed more or less the same.

The mid-range is frozen in time!

Many of the manufacturers responsible for the low-range or mid-range smartphone market have been reusing components since 2020, and as such, consumers are tired of paying double for the same hardware, or slightly different variations of it.

However, in addition to all this, with the pandemic resulting in confinements, we had more people having to depend on their smartphones to consume multimedia content more seriously, or sometimes even to work from the comfort of their homes. In short, if the smartphone was already important before the pandemic, after it it only became even more important.

As such, being such an important device in our lives, where we do so much on a daily basis, consumers decided to choose to buy really good models, instead of models that are used to “get out of trouble”.

It’s a bit like here that Apple has its hands full with orders and pre-orders every time it launches a new smartphone, and even Samsung itself, the leader in the Android world, has tripled sales in the Premium segment (over €600 ).

In fact, we even have several consumers opting for refurbished premium-range smartphones, almost always iPhones that are 2 or 3 years old, instead of buying a new mid-range. – This is irrefutable proof that the mid-range is not appealing to the current market!

In short, nowadays, I only see premium smartphones on the streets! More specifically iPhones and Galaxy S Ultras. You too?