2014 Phone numbers

[muneshyne21]

Microsoft/Nokia have put out a total of 10 Windows phones for 2014. If you count the Nokia X's then 14?

Samsung - 32 phones (granted some of these are not internationally distributed)

Motorola - 6

HTC - 16

LG - 30 (granted some of these are not internationally distributed)

Apple - 2

These are just quick counts using phonearena. Im not trying to make any arguments. I was honestly just curious. This may help us get a little perspective. LG and Samsung seem to have an unfair advantage since they can produce hardware. Apple basically owns Foxconn. This doesn't include domestic manufacturers in China, India, etc.

Android - 84
Apple - 2
Windows - 11 (includes HTC One)

Talk amongst yourselves. Discuss.

 

[xandros9]

Yea, I imagine adding in other manufacturers like BLU, Huawei would slant those numbers even more to Android.

But I like how Apple stands tall with... 2. Sounds just like them.

I'm surprised LG cranked out as many as they did. I thought Samsung was untouchable in sheer phone firing.

 

[crash0330]

Dang! 84 "new" Android phones this year, that's a lot.
android has really saturated the market. Must be why most non techie people first phone is for the most part an Android.
I mean for many people Android is just the default purchase. And the phone manufacturers have done a good job of kind of separating their phone lines from Android. For example people don't say, "Oh I bought a new Samsung phone" instead they go "Oh I bought a new Galaxy"

 

[ajst222]

I think Microsoft needs to keep it fairly simple with their phone line while still covering all the bases, but not having a million different variants and overlaps. I discussed this pretty well in another thread here that I will quote for you:

High end (standard) device: Microsoft Lumia
Mid range device: Microsoft Lumia M
Low end device: Microsoft Lumia Lite
High end phablet: Microsoft Lumia XL
Mid range phablet: Microsoft Lumia XL M
Low end phablet: Microsoft Lumia XL Lite

They need to keep it simple. Work off of those product lines. Having a lot of products seems to be working fairly well, but the numbers are hard to keep track of. One might look and think things like "Oh, the Lumia 1320 is better than the 930" or "Oh, the Lumia 1020 is newer than the Lumia 930"...things like that. You've still got the selection of 2 high end devices, 2 low end devices, and 2 mid range devices. I think that lineup would work fine. There might not be the need for a mid range phablet, but you get the idea...everything branches off of just the "Microsoft Lumia" and for generations just add a number at the end. No confusion.

EDIT: Also, Lumia line is for all devices running their mobile OS's and Surface line should be for all devices running full on Windows so there's no confusion there either.

 

[muneshyne21]

From the numbers it seems like Microsoft needs an LG or Samsung on their side going full bore. They need a company that can do both the Hardware and Software. Who else makes screens, processors, memory, misc. electronics...etc and has their own marketing team, product team, phone division...

Sony! Oh wait, I think they sold off all those assets...

 

[crash0330]

From the numbers it seems like Microsoft needs an LG or Samsung on their side going full bore. They need a company that can do both the Hardware and Software. Who else makes screens, processors, memory, misc. electronics...etc and has their own marketing team, product team, phone division...

Sony! Oh wait, I think they sold off all those assets...

I actually agree with you about those companies being more independent, and having a big advantage, which is they have their own marketing team.
The way google does it is basically just release the software and have Samsung or LG do their thing and push their own phones with google software.
That is super smart as google doesn't have to spend a lot of money trying to promote their operating system, instead leaves it all to the companies. And in the case of Microsoft, it all falls on them, to market the phones as well as the OS.
Which might be why it seems like we don't really see many Windows Phone ads, compared to Android phones ads.
Microsoft has a limited budget for marketing their Os and phones, while android if you add all the companies that make Android phones, you end up with an almost unlimited budget for marketing android.