In 2020, the cost of smartphones reached a record high. This is reported by the GizmoChina edition.
In the past year, smartphones have risen in price compared to 2019. The portal's journalist Argam Artashyan noted that the cost of almost all flagship models has seriously increased, having updated record figures. In particular, if in 2019 the base smartphone Samsung Note was priced at $ 1,229, then in 2020 the initial device of the same series was available for at least $ 1,410. Also, devices of the Huawei Mate series have risen in price – from 1056 to 1378 dollars, Xiaomi Mi – from 566 to 811 dollars, OnePlus – from 704 to 827 dollars.
At the same time, Apple – a company traditionally criticized for high prices for products – not only kept the value of flagships in dollars, but also increased the storage capacity of some starter models. So, the most affordable iPhone 12 Pro Max was priced at the same price as the 11 Pro Max, but got 128 instead of 64 gigabytes of storage.
According to the expert, smartphone manufacturers explain the rise in price by the fact that they are developing more advanced devices that should not be cheap. Artashyan also suggested that for marketing purposes, many manufacturers began to purposefully give expensive smartphones complex names that should indicate professional and premium positioning – for example, Samsung Galaxy Note 20 Ultra 5G or Huawei Mate 40 Pro +.
Despite the general trend, some manufacturers keep the cost of basic versions of top-end devices at the same level. However, for this they have to go to some tricks. Specifically, Apple and Samsung released the iPhone 11 and Galaxy S10 smartphones in 2019, priced at $ 699. Their successors – the iPhone 12 and Galaxy S20 – have risen in price, but to maintain the starting price of $ 700, manufacturers have released the iPhone 12 mini and Galaxy S20 FE.
