Why not Aggressive pricing? (Healthy discussion)

[Dr Sammy]

WP's have a market share of less than 3%. I really want to understand some strategies which goes in Microsoft's team, inspite of poor performance in mobile's category, MS is and has been phenomenal with software services they provide.

Back to my actual question, what I dont get is.... why not MS make mobiles at very affordable prices in competition with Xiaomi (Mi), Huawei or Micromax of India and churn out the game in low end device segment and start expanding their base. I know how big a hit is Lumia 520 and even Lumia 535, ah yes !!
But if an average customer wants to buy a low end device, he will think in terms of RAM (#), Internal storage(#), Camera MP's(#), he doesnt get into things like OIS, Carl Zeiss Optics, IIS, FPS, Qi Wireless charging or even lets say Qualcomm Snapdragon. 512MB RAM of WP was almost equal to 1GB of Androids back then, even now the specifications at which one gets a Lumia at a certain price is way lower and costly than its Android counter part.

You might be thinking/saying that Microsoft Lumia is a premium brand, but if we are getting into High end/ Flagships(950, 950 XL), Apple and Samsung are eating out the pie, where does MS really excel?

Where does Lumia 550 stand in competition now? How well did a Lumia 430 do?

 

[Dr Sammy]

Anyone with some answers?

 

[ombreman]

I think you allready get more now, compare to android. (Low budget phones like Lumia 535 which costs 99€) Or p.i. Lumia 640. If you compare the performance and build quality Lumias are one class higher. And you should compare it to the A brands, not china x-brands, which are based on MTK chips.
Is Lumia 550 out yet? For Lumia 430 is bad that in our country you get Lumia 535 for the same price...

 

[API_Rock]

Lumia 550 @ INR 9399 VS Micromax yuphoria @ INR 7000

in UK Lumia 550 available for ?59.99 (INR 5912) that's justified.

if they offer same price in India then it would be a hit!!

 

[API_Rock]

I copy pasted above but it went mixed I will clear hear:-

Lumia 550 vs Yuphria

Battery capacity (mAh) 2100 2230
Screen size (inches) 4.70 5.00
Processor 1.1GHz quad-core 1.2GHz quad-core
Processor make Qualcomm Snapdragon 210 Qualcomm Snapdragon 410 MSM8916
RAM 1GB 2GB
Internal storage 8GB 16GB
Rear camera 5-megapixel 8-megapixel
Front camera 2mp 5mp


Now tell me who will give extra money for less features ?

 

[Tien-Lin Chang]

I think you allready get more now, compare to android. (Low budget phones like Lumia 535 which costs 99?) Or p.i. Lumia 640. If you compare the performance and build quality Lumias are one class higher. And you should compare it to the A brands, not china x-brands, which are based on MTK chips.
Is Lumia 550 out yet? For Lumia 430 is bad that in our country you get Lumia 535 for the same price...

When 1)lumia 550 cost 140USD, 2)similar price android phone are 2x to 4x in terms of spec/performance in CPU/RAM/screen/storage and 3)w10m/wp8 are not twice as efficient as android under same spec is hard to defence that Windows Mobile devices are better than android devices in terms of performance.

MSFT might have put some good parts (camera/screen) in their high-end phones but not the budget ones. The camera is not nice, some even missing important feature like autofocus/LED flash/front-facing camera(which is hard to image in 2014/15). The screens are cheap and performs even worse then so called China x-brand devices(like the lumia 535's screen have terrible delta in color correction and mediocre view angle). When you chop your low-end devices like this I think it's pointless to talk about build quality.

They just simply overpriced their device and make it not attractive for an outsider to consider switching platform.

 

[Harrie-S]

They just simply overpriced their device and make it not attractive for an outsider to consider switching platform.

Not sure if you know that MS has a new strategy? If not bing/google around and you will know.
Furthermore low end/budget is not called for nothing low end/budget so expecting high end hardware/features is unrealistic.
By the way the budget androids which android version do they have?

And last but not least "catching" market by just sell phones very cheap will also have the disadvantage that people buy it but than "discover" they can not "handle" the OS / app "gap".

 

[Tien-Lin Chang]

Not sure if you know that MS has a new strategy? If not bing/google around and you will know.
Furthermore low end/budget is not called for nothing low end/budget so expecting high end hardware/features is unrealistic.
By the way the budget androids which android version do they have?

And last but not least "catching" market by just sell phones very cheap will also have the disadvantage that people buy it but than "discover" they can not "handle" the OS / app "gap".

1)You mean the "we gonna make our high-end devices rare, expensive and exclusively for fans" strategy? I think it's just pure excuse because they know it won't sell well. Just Image if the market demand of 950/XL is as strong as iPhone, do you really believe they would still pull this nonsense out? Even the old "cloud first" strategy is not a good excuse for releasing dated spec devices and price them on-par (overpriced) with better-equipped competitors.

2)I am not saying making a flagship device and sell it for budget price. For sure there's more suitable spec rather than using smartwatch-level hardware to build a phone. Here are some example:
Xiaomi Redmi Note 3 - Full phone specifications
Octa-core CPU/2G RAM/5.5" FHD screen/5mp front camera/13mp main camera with PDAF/16GB ROM/fingerprint sensor
MIUI 7 based on android 4.4 (upgrading to 5.1)
contract-free price start from 140 USD

??note2
Octa-core CPU/2G RAM/5.5" FHD screen/5mp front camera/13mp main camera/16GB ROM
Flyme OS5 based on Android 5.1
contract-free price start from 125 USD

??metal
Octa-core CPU/2G RAM/5.5" FHD screen/5mp front camera/13mp main camera with PDAF/16GB ROM/fingerprint sensor/metal back
Flyme OS5 based on Android 5.1
contract-free price start from 155 USD

3)This is a typical "Which comes first, the chicken or the egg?" question. If you can't increase user base then how you gonna attract devs? If devs won't get in then app gap won't disappear, if app gap remains then UX won't improve, if UX not improving then how to maintain user base? With the pause of android/iOS emulator development, UWP will be the only hope to fight against this situation which still devs were driven by user base.

 

[Canjok]

Now I want a xiaomi and it isnt available for my country xD