It’s not often that we get a peek at how major players are faring in the local tech scene, so it’s always a welcome sight to see a company like Starmobile drop some information about its current best sellers.
According to the company, the Starmobile Knight Luxe and Up HD — both of which are fairly new releases, mind you — have become its most popular devices in 2015. In fact, Starmobile product development head Michael Chen says that both Android phones comprise more than a third of Starmobile’s smartphone sales from May to June of this year, even claiming that there’s now “unprecedented demand” for the Knight Luxe and Up HD.
What’s surprising about all this isn’t that consumers are opting to buy newer models — people prefer the latest specs, of course — but rather Starmobile bucking the industry trend of getting retail sales volume from entry-level smartphones.
Recent GfK data suggests that local brands make the bulk of their sales from selling sub-P3,000 devices — devices that typically offer subpar specs and subpar performance. The Starmobile Knight Luxe and Up HD retail for P7,690 and P4,990, respectively.
The success of both devices may not necessarily reflect how good they are, but it does seem to indicate that people are willing to spend more on phones.
The success of both devices may not necessarily reflect how good they are, but it does seem to indicate that people are now willing to spend more on smartphones. It would be interesting to know if other homegrown brands are seeing the same shift in consumer taste.
[youtube link=”https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8jkJCAx58eY” width=”560″ height=”315″]
Starmobile Knight Luxe unboxing clip from Starmobile’s YouTube channel
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