I am from India and I gladly pay for Amazon ebooks, Audible audiobooks, iTunes music, movies and apps. I am not even rich - there are many of us from less affluent countries that understand that content creators should get their compensation. More than anything else, I want to reward these companies for making content accessible to me (no physical bookstore will come to a small city and open a branch).
I lead a fairly contented life in my small corner of the world and there are probably two things that angers me equally. One is the way affluent countries treat me when I want a visa to visit or transit through them and second is the message on Amazon that a particular ebook is not available to me because of my geographical region. I only resort to searching online for a pirated ebook or converting youtube music to mp3 after I have exhausted all options of finding the content on a legit online store.
I think more than a cheap phone they need a premium phone. A good looking, high end camera packing phone that shows the best of the platform. I agree with many who state here that Android is already doing well at the low end. The sub 25 USD buyer finds such phones too complicated.
Large Japanese cities have busy Apple stores too. Besides one to one consultation, they run regular lectures on iPhone and iPad productivity. I think people feel happy being Apple customers. My wife is Japanese and she like Apple's FaceTime more than the Google equivalent because it does not force her to join a social network. Many Japanese are not too keen on creating accounts on networks. I travel a fair bit in Asia and I see slivers of same trend. As people in India, China and Indonesia etc. get busier they will move towards products that are perceived to be simpler and less distracting.
It is not an poor excuse. When I use my bank site via a browser or try to book an airline ticket, there are lots of distractions or offers etc. The app is more usable with minimal distraction and often can retain information offline. I travel extensively and use booking.com app to book all the time. The app stores my hotel booking offline so if I show up in a country where I have not had time to buy a local data SIM, I can still access my booking. As someone who is always converting money, I could use something like xe.com but try using that site on a mobile browser, it is not a good experience and certainly not something you can do with one hand (you are in a cross border town and your other hand is holding your bags or maps etc). Compare that to this new app I am using called Converted. The developers must have really spend time understanding the situations where someone is changing money and the importance of doing your calculation with one hand. And yes Google Play has shoddy apps but Windows is more terrible. Try finding a half decent podcast player on Windows.
>Not seeing how this follows from the data and analysis and seems to be a rather bold claim. There is a real chance of smartphones getting commodotized and it has already happened to a certain extent in China and India, where local OEMs are calling the shots.
I spend time in both countries you mention and couple more in Asia. Local OEMs are calling the shots because market as a whole is growing. But, the smarter OEMs realize that they have to make phones that are less shoddy. That is why you see brands like Oppo. What I have seen in the last couple of years is that as people get busier, they don't have time or patience to handle rubbish phones. They will not mind spending more money to get an iPhone or a Mac. Many analysts in the west try to say something like we Asians buy these gadgets as a status symbol. It might be true to a certain extent, but more people are getting them these because they are tired of cheap and crappy devices.
Yes it means something when phone is the only device you use and you don't have the app for your banks or airlines or insurance company. A lot of whats there on the windows app store is also shoddy.
I lead a fairly contented life in my small corner of the world and there are probably two things that angers me equally. One is the way affluent countries treat me when I want a visa to visit or transit through them and second is the message on Amazon that a particular ebook is not available to me because of my geographical region. I only resort to searching online for a pirated ebook or converting youtube music to mp3 after I have exhausted all options of finding the content on a legit online store.