Smartphone light at the end of the tunnel?

Image by Johnny Vulkan via Flickr

"Consumers are buying high-end smart phones still, which is surprising in an economic crisis. But the fact of the matter is that people are seeing the value in wireless data," So says Qualcomm CEO Paul Jacobs, as quoted by the New Zealand Herald. Does this mean that the obsession phone makers have with creating the best smart phone is justified?

Or maybe they (and consumers) just can’t get enough of those shiny, Swiss Army Knife-like smart phones. It’s a changed world, now. Before, just having an alarm was a key selling feature. Now you get questions from prospective mobile buyers like so:

Clueless wannabe camwhore: ”How many megapixels does it have?”

Internet-addict/potential CrackBerry user: “Does it have Wi-Fi/3G?”

Music junkie, anti-iPod (else he’d have got one): “How’s the sound? Are the speakers loud?”

Consumers, it seems, are demanding more from their phones. When it comes to mobile phones, we’re all mobile-mad down in Singapore, Malaysia, and Thailand. While US phone users are used to getting phones for free or little money from their telcos, we’re used to paying pretty much full price for our phones. But let’s not talk about grey market phones, all right?

It’s not enough for a phone to just be a phone, but it’s not enough for a phone to claim to do everything either. There’s a reason iPhones sell more than all the other ‘smart phones’ combined. Because Apple gets it – that consumers are hungry for something that really is different.

How do you justify a smart phone purchase? Not as hard as it used to be. With 5 megapixel wonders in the market, you can now take pictures with your phone that actually look good printed. Who needs an iPod when your Nokia Music Xpress/Sony Walkman sounds nearly as good as one? And for business folk, being able to get back to clients via email pronto makes up for the sheer boringness of RIM’s BlackBerries.

So maybe mobile phone makers are going to see a slight dip in profits from last quarter. But Nokia’s N97 is the It-Phone for this year, the one everyone’s really waiting for. So Apple had better think up some new tricks for their cash pony iPhone. Motorola’s decision to embrace Windows Mobile is either really wise or suicidal. We’ll see by the end of the year. Sony Ericsson’s Xperia was a beautiful disappointment, so much promise, so little delivered. Samsung…we don’t really know what to say. LG will likely not be coming up with a smartphone, since they seem to prefer selling fashion/food-themed phones instead.

Google Android? The Big G is likely to follow Apple’s strategy – offload or attempt to offload a gazillion of those G1s in the US before even thinking of coming over here to compete with established players in the mobile phone market.

What is certain is that profit margins be damned, we’re still going to be seeing new smart phones on the market and pretty soon. Hallelujah! Praise those early adopters, hype believers and the consumer fascination with all-in-one phones!