Acting president of HTC America: iPhones are for old people | Hacker News Reader

Acting president of HTC America: iPhones are for old people

mashable.com

10 pointsmun2mun16 comments

He's publicly announcing his market predictions based on one interaction with his child and Mashable decided to publish it.

It's called PR spin, not market predictions.

Of course the kids in general have cheaper phones, that doesn't mean they don't want luxury goods if they could afford it.

Yeah, but his point is that there's a difference between cool, rock-star luxury and stuffy, old, bourgeois luxury, and he thinks the iPhone is moving towards the 2nd category. The cool kids don't care about Hermès handbags either, their moms do. OTOH, it could be more of a wish of his that this would happen, as it's one of the few angles they can attack the iPhone.

On my own anecdotal evidence, I have to say he's wrong. I haven't been out of school for very long, still live in a college town, and have friends in college, and I can tell you that they are (generally) carrying Android devices for a small handful of reasons, none of which has to do with their cool factor:

1) It was subsidized cheaply on their family plan.

2) They have a non-AT&T carrier (or bought before the iPhone was on Verizon)

3) Their parents bought it for them

4) They have some other non-Apple bias (iPhone isn't open, Macs suck, etc.)

Among those that fall into the first three categories, most actively want an iPhone. We'll know when the iPhone has lost its cool status the same way we knew the BlackBerry had: when Taylor Swift, et. al. start carrying Droids en masse.

I think this is largely true, but the converse is that the only big reason people buy iPhones IS the 'cool factor' (ie. marketing). That's why HTC want to challenge that.

In the UK at least, I see a lot of people with iPhones and also a lot with android phones (mostly HTCs). However, when people see my Nexus One, they often say 'Oh is that an iPhone?' because the word iPhone is synonymous with touchscreen phones. The iPhone has the brand and the public awareness which is what helps it sell.

If HTC or other Android partners manage to erode that, they could stand to gain heavily. A huge portion of smartphone customers really don't know or care about the differences (good or bad) between one smartphone and another.

I don't know. I don't think I've ever had has much disposable income as I did as a single 21 year old, working my first full time job and living in a tiny apartment.

And either way. We're talking about consumer level mobile phones, not a car. The actual price difference between a mid range HTC phone and a top of the line iPhone is pretty tiny all things considered. If you can afford on, you can probably stretch to afford the other if you really wanted to.

With first job yes, but when you're at school? I find that most younger people I know do have android phones. Some have iPhones and just because it's more expensive it's a luxury item. The entry-level android phones are pretty competitive to iphone, they are a lot cheaper and provide almost the same functionality. Having and android phone also rhymes a little better with the pirate stance, as buying apps is not as interesting for kids as buying beer when free apps can be had online. I would think that the entry level android phones are most popular, but cannot back that up with stats though.

I would disagree. All of these kids want two expensive purchases: a car and a phone. They are social status items.

It does help Android that there are a lot of low-priced models.

>Having and android phone also rhymes a little better with the pirate stance, as buying apps is not as interesting for kids as buying beer when free apps can be had online.

I'm not exactly sure about piracy. They seem more interested in streaming content, at least when it comes to music. More than any other generation they view it as being disposable.

I can guarantee you they care about buying apps. There is a reason why the most popular apps are games.

This angle of attack definitely makes sense when you consider HTC's $300 million investment in Beats By Dre - a brand that primarily targets the youth market.

Good luck convincing a generation raised on iPods that the iPhone is old and stodgy, though. It also doesn't help when promotions like http://www.supercuts.com/promotion/SuperAccess/default.asp effectively lower Android's perceived value.

I'm guessing your second point is the reason why HTC is pushing HTC Sense so hard. "Any piece of crap can run Android, but if you want a Sense phone you have to get an HTC"

If Sense is the main selling point then it isn't a very good one. I'm not a kid anymore but I can tell you that, while they may know a lot about phones than their parents, they don't care about different Android skins. Those that are aware want stock Android.

I prefer HTC Sense. It's why I waited for a HTC phone to come out on Verizon rather than jump on the original Droid.

While the iPhone may or may not be "cool" for the younger set, the iPod Touch is from everything I can tell massively popular with tweens, teens and college students (and while there are now some iPod Touch Android equivalents, nothing close to the ubiquity of the Touch).

For a while Apple's educational discount just flat out gave an 8GB iPod Touch to students/teachers when they bought a Mac.

This seems like the real 'gateway drug' to the iOS ecosystem.

This made me do a bit of research -- and I didn't come across anything that really points to HTC being a youth brand above all else. They do well in the youth market, but so does Apple. If you look at their ads they're trying to appeal to Gen Y, but I can't honestly say that they have the same sort of pull with that demo that you see with a brand like say Scion or even Google.

Judging from the advertisements in local phone stores here, I'd say that Samsung and Motorola appeal much more to the young folks, while HTC is more of a premium brand for executives and uber-geeks who want to fiddle with the bootloader.

I think Apple is still sort of both... it still has the "cool" factor inherited from the iPod. But I know a bunch of 13, 14 year old kids (I work at an university, and we have a school) who have iPhones, and not one who owns an Android.

But YMMV

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