Evolution of the Mid-range Market

 

Beginning of the mid range era

In the beginning of the smartphone boom at the start of 2010s there were only two to three major companies releasing smartphones every year that every user had to buy as they had no other choice and these smartphones cost the users fortunes. On the IOS side of things Apple was the only company (Still is today) and on the android side of things Samsung and HTC were the two of the biggest companies and users had only these three companies to choose from. Moreover, unlike these companies would only release one smartphone a year and that was their flagship smartphone and they cost no less than 500$. Samsung and Apple though improved their smartphones yearly, they increased the prices of the phones considerably every year but people still bought them as there was not a lot of choice in the market for users

Then in 2016 when apple released the Iphone 7 and Samsung released the Galaxy S7 at fairly high prices of 700-800 dollars, another company joined them in releases that year that released a considerably less expensive smartphone than either of them and that company was Oneplus and in 2016 alongside the Iphone 7 and Galaxy S7 they released the Oneplus 5 was sold around 600$. Although it wasn't a very cheap phone but, it was considerably less expensive then both Apple and Samsung latest flagships and had great specs like a 16Mp camera having a sensor made by sony and a 3300mAh battery and it started the term 'price over performance' and quickly became the fastest selling phone in oneplus history and it matched in sales with both iphone and Samsung which simply unheard of at the time.

After the success of the Oneplus 5 companies quickly realized what the people wanted. They knew that people wanted good performance at low price with considerably low and avoidable drawbacks and after that companies like Xiomi and Vivo came into the smartphone market and started to design their own mid range smartphones and then companies like infinix and techno started to produce low range smartphones that by using less expensive cameras, plastic backs instead of glass backs, LCD pannels instead of AMOLED or LEDs  and less powerful chipsets reduced the cost of their smartphones even less than 200$ which was a price unheard of at the time. There was a time when there were only Samsung phones and Iphones in the market and all a sudden the entire market was full of companies and smartphones at any and every price point.

The Affect:

This sudden change in the smartphone industry had severe effects on the market views of big companies like Apple, Samsung and Huawei which knew that if they want to continue to be at the top they have to start producing less expensive smartphones which also gave users an experience synonymous with their brand. To accomplish that and make their mark in the mid range smartphone market they did two things:

1. Raising the flagship Bar:

The first thing these company did when making their mid range smartphones, they started making extra expensive flagship phones. Their flagship phone would be normally priced above the 1000$ mark but they contained THE best chipset, battery, display, cameras and had the premium feel that only a 1000$ smartphone would have to distinguish their flagship phones with their and other companies mid range smartphones. They gave people the choice to either spend less money and have less features or spend more than a 1000$ and have the luxury experience of the best smartphone that any company had to offer, Samsung galaxy S10 and the Iphone X were prime examples of this marketing strategy.

2. Joining the Mid range market:

The second thing these flagship companies had to do was to join the mid range market and make a point in that price point as that they are still the best. Samsung came front and center in the mid range smartphone with there A and J series marking the first time Samsung joined the mid range market. Although they couldn't gather enough audience as much as they did in their flagship department, they still managed to successfully take away some audience of from companies like Oppo and Oneplus. It was in 2018 when Samsung released the Galaxy A30 and huawei released their Y series phones that these flagship companies gained a lot of audience in the mid range department as these phones were very good at performance competeing with the best mid range phones at the time in terms of both price and performance. After that the Samsung galaxy A50, A51 and A71 would go onto become some of the best selling smartphones in companies history and at the same time all of these companies still dominated the falgship industry

 

Mid range Smartphones Nowadays:

Nowadays mid range smartphones are getting better and better providing greater performance retaining their low prices hence making them apart from the flagship market. Smartphones like Samsung Galaxy A51, Huawei nova 7i and Vivo S5 in the mid range and Smartphones like Infinix S5 pro and techno camon 15 pro in the low range market are some of the cheapest smartphones with the harware and design of a flagship and specs that justify their price point and these smartphones are consistently some of the best selling smartphones in the market, with the infinix and techno brand being exceptionally popular in the indian and pakistani markets. Whenever a user nowadays thinks about buying a new smartphone, his first priority is always the mid range market and if the mid range smartphone doesn't fulfill his needs for the smartphone which is pretty rare these days, then he looks for flagship and more expensive smartphones. Hence the mid range market has grown to be the main consumer attracting market for smartphone companies and even company like apple has released a mid range smart phone with the Iphone SE 2020 and if a company like apple is competing in the mid range market then this proves that this has become a pretty big deal in the industry and is quickly taking away customers from 1000-1400$ flagship smartphones.