Many leading suppliers use PriceTRAX to track and compare smartphones, mobile phones, tablets and dongles across 120 carriers and 190 retailers in 43 countries.  Weekly updates to unsubsidised, pre-paid and post-paid contract pricing across retailers and operators are presented in a comprehensive and easy-to-use web interface.

You are invited to attend our exclusive analysis breakfast presentations at MWC where you can try out PriceTRAX. If you would like to register for this breakfast event click HERE-->>

The PriceTRAX demonstration will show its ease of use and efficiency in answering questions such as:

·         Have any of our competitors’ prices changed this week?

·         Are we losing margin through unnecessarily low price points?

·         What are the most popular market entry price points?

·         How does tablet pricing compare across retailers and network operators?

If you feel that someone in your company or a colleague within the industry may benefit from a demonstration please feel free to forward this announcement to them.

If you would like to register for this breakfast event click HERE-->>

Stephen Entwistle

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We’ve used our PriceTRAX tracking database to plot flagship smartphone depreciation. The work demonstrates the pricing divide between ultra-premium and entry-level devices, and the role older high-end handsets have in filling the void.  

To try the PriceTRAX database for yourself click HERE

The work also highlights the positive impact of branding on handset retail values.  As a product ages, you expect its retail price to fall.  In the case of smartphones, this decline has been difficult to quantify so we used a large number of historic pricing data points across 105 channels in 37 countries to shed light on the figures.

Smartphones have a retail lifecycle of around two years. By the end of this, most brands have reduced product retail pricing by 34% on average, although there are notable exceptions; such as Samsung’s S1, Apple’s iPhone 4 and the HTC Wildfire, all holding their pricing well for different reasons. The S1 demonstrates the advantage of being early to market.

• As one of the first of the ultra-high-spec “super-phones” it was well positioned to hold its price through the early part of its lifecycle due to fewer competitors.

Apple iPhone prices tend not to become discounted due to a tightly managed product branding strategy which focuses on premium smartphones. As a result, depreciation during the first 18 months of the product lifecycle is substantially less compared to competing smartphone handsets. Instead, their value slides by 25% between 22 and 28 months of age.  Clearly, iPhones have upheld a clear price differential compared to their counterparts.

The HTC Wildfire shows an extraordinarily low depreciation rate. It was introduced to challenge smartphone prices and has proved to be depreciation resistant compared to others.

A crop of second generation smartphones such as the Samsung S2, Nokia N8, LG Optimus and BlackBerry Curve 3 8520 have similar price depreciation rates 12–24 months after their launches. Another influencing factor would be vendor’s handset portfolio refresh rate impacting on the retail value of existing products and this will be the focus of a later study.

PriceTRAX is an online comparison database from Strategy Analytics tracking contract, unsubsidized and pre-paid retail pricing for smartphones, tablets and mobile phones through carrier and retail channels.

To try the PriceTRAX database for yourself click HERE

Steve Entwistle

PriceTRAX data has been used to track retail price depreciation for specific smartphones in our recently published database extract: What's It Worth? This methodology has also been applied to determine the effect of branding on smartphone retail value (based on PAYG and unsubsidized prices for OEM portfolios).

Apple iPhones are sound investments for end users, showing negligable depreciation during the first 18 month of their lifecycle, sliding -25% in the 6 months between 22 and 28 months of age, but still maintaining a clear price differentiation from their counterparts. Nokia's smartphones appear to depreciate within a month of release, and HTC's handsets after 3 months. RIM's smartphones hold their value during the first 10 months of availability, followed by quick devaluation. Samsung's pricing strategy is more interesting; attracting a 10% discount on introduction with average retail price peaking 1 month after release, however results in a net depreciation higher than the rival OEMs at -50% (from maximum retail price).

Smartphones have a retail lifecycle of over 2 years, however by this time their value has reduced by approx -40% for most brands. Apple enjoys slower depreciation, however their portfolio is exclusively premium smartphones. A vendor's refresh rate for handsets will impact on the retail value of existing products, this will be the focus of a later extract.

This is just one of many ways to analyse PriceTRAX data, PriceTRAX clients have access to over 5 million pricing datapoints for smartphones, mobile phones and tablets (including historic pricing back to May 2010 and up to the current day) which continues to grow weekly; to contact a member of the PriceTRAX team to discuss this extensive market intelligence resource CLICK HERE, or TRY PriceTRAX for yourself.

PriceTRAX now tracks 225 network operators and retailers spanning 38 countries following the recent addition of 58 new channels (operators and retailers) this quarter. PriceTRAX is an online database which tracks three types of pricing for smartphones, mobile phone and tablets.

Prices currently tracked are the:

• Retail Price (Unsubsidised)
• Pre-Paid or PAYG Price (Pay-As-You-Go)
• Post-Paid or Contract Pricing; including tariff cost, contract duration and any upfront handset cost

PriceTRAX’s impressive country portfolio will continue to increase through continued research efforts. The PriceTRAX team works closely with clients to increase coverage in regions of interest.

The map below summarises today’s coverage.

If you want to try the PriceTRAX database for yourself, just click HERE or contact the team to arrange a PriceTRAX demo.