One of my biggest complains about HTC over the past year or so has been that HTC releases too many phone models in the market, for anyone to treat any single model seriously anymore. One of their upcoming phones, which was supposed to be a quad core Tegra 3 phone, was first named Edge, then Endeavor, and now we hear it will be called Supreme.
I don’t know whether this is happening because they were not happy with the original names, or because they aren’t allowed to use those names, just like Asus is not allowed to use the Transformer name. Either way, this is also a symptom of the fact that HTC releases too many phones in the market.
They really need to slow down, and plan major releases like every 6 months or so for every price range. And those prices ranges should have a difference of at least $100 between them. Even this way, they’ll probably end up with at least 6-12 models per year, which I believe is more than enough. Do they really need to release more than 2 high-end models per year, when new chips already come up around every 6 months?
Releasing phones faster than that just means you’ll release multiple models at the same price range, with more or less the same specs. That’s very boring for the consumers, and it just dilutes their marketing and brand power, because it creates more confusion for the consumers in the market, and they have to split the marketing money for multiple models, which means fewer people will hear about their phones.
They should at least learn from Samsung with their Galaxy S models, and how massively successful they’ve been with those models, simply by working hard to make an awesome phone with the best specs on the market, and release it only once a year. HTC hasn’t done this, which is why not many people remember their high-end models. So in 2012, I really hope they start following Samsung’s strategy. Motorola has already announced they are going to do this, and release fewer models, so at least one other Android manufacturer is learning their lesson.
[Via AndroidAndMe]