Smartphone marketing has reached a new level–The processor race is on, led by Qualcomm snapdragon

If you follow any mobile industry news you have probably over the last month or so seen at least once, be it online or in print adverts by Qulacomm advertising the snapdragon processor.

So what?

Well I believe this marks a new level in smartphone marketing that is about to get a whole lot bigger…

We all make a choice about what phone we want and now more than ever the colour and internal specs are becoming more important.  Even the first time smartphone user is asking for dual-core or particular internal memory sizes.

Choice is something we are often blessed with when it comes to certain elements of the phone. 

To date I would imagine few have made the conscious decision to choose a phone based on the brand of processor unless you are comparing speed or single to dual core or dual to quad-core.

I would imagine few have said I want this particular chip in my phone or made a decision on the phone because of the brand of processor.

You choose a brand of phone for one reason or another but soon you will be choosing a phone based on the brand of processor.

And here is why I believe that this will be the case.

Whilst the number of mobile phones has boomed as has the revenues and profits of companies like Qualcomm, producers of one of the key components to any mobile.

The majority of their money goes back into research and development, but it has got past the point of being about recouping R&D costs, they have exceeded the critical mass needed to make operating profitable.

Throughout the last 5-10 boom years, they have only ever had to really sell themselves to the phone manufactures who within reason dictated the market. Thus their marketing costs are to a point limited and they can to dictate prices of the processor.

Now though the voice of the consumer is becoming stronger.  Even the biggest companies are having to listen more than before to what users want and as a result internal components then come into the mix.

Qualcomm has never before (in my opinion) had to worry too much about the consumer as long as they provide a product that performs.  But, as we become more educated we learn what works better or not and Qualcomm have launched what can only be seen as a massive campaign to persuade us to choose devices with a Qualcomm chip.

Why though?

• Qualcomm know that their chips are where they need to be. They are fast, they are reliable and the are capable for all the things we need them to do in a modern smartphone.
• They often perform better than the competing chips in terms of heat and battery drain.
• They want to be ahead of the curve and as other chip manufacturers like NVIDIA are slowly making ingression into the smartphone market and manufacturers like Samsung begin making their own Qualcomm do not want to be left out.  They want to stake their claim as a major supplier.
• If they can sell us the message that we should buy their chips, we in turn buy smartphones with those chips and manufacturers see the popularity.  It makes the manufacturer reliant upon those phones and the companies that supply the parts.
• It has the money to change opinion and educate.  Where there has been little need to market their chips to the public they have saved millions in costs which accumulates over the years into a nice pot they can use when the time is right…now.

All of the above leads to trying to create a demand which can in turn secure their presence within a market and try to push out competitors.

Yes the likes of NVIDIA with their quad-core processor has a place, but it is currently fairly limited and the mass market are still on single core processors, not even dual core.

Add to this that many apps are not optimised for quad-core and a large number of quad-core users rarely use all cores then there is an argument to opt for the less powerful but certainly capable processor. O, and if it reduces battery drain and the chances of having a hot to the touch phone then that is a bonus.

It is a complete circle.  Qualcomm have the money to push their popular snapdragon processor.  It creates demand for particular phones which gives certain manufacturers more influence and if they then make more phones with a snapdragon chip that we hear only good things about, it in turn helps Qualcomm.

The best bit is, snapdragon chips aren’t fussy, they will work with BlackBerry, Windows Phone or Android!

It is for the previously mentioned reasons that we are seeing a rise in marketing of the chips and Qualcomm are leading the race with promotion of the snapdragon chip.  Don’t be surprised if soon you see Qualcomm advertising in conjunction with manufacturers or the likes of NVIDIA pushing a similar message.

For more information on Qualcomm snapdragon chips, CLICK HERE.