Nearly 500 smartphone brands have left the market since 2017

Am I the only one surprised there were even that many in the first place?
- I can't believe you've never heard of Zoogle, Bokia, Pamsung, ACKOOO, ACKOOO2², Votorola...
  
  Don’t forget uPhone, GRE, Hawaii, Mulberry, Lentuvo, and Hitsubishi.
  
  Chinese companies love the ACKOOO type names. LPOWERB, SUPERQ, FKPHONE, that kind of thing.
- With all the shitbrands on amazon and similar sites I was only half surprised but still 100% more surprised than I should have been.
- Most of them were not real manufacturers, but slapping their name on Chinese white brand phones.
  
  Yup, surprised nobody said this in this thread for so long.
- The movement for free and open source software has not achieved a world in which most people use only FOSS. But it has achieved a world where there is a lot of diversity in technology, including many Android smartphone brands you haven't heard of.
- Maybe they are counting all the times Microsoft launched a new brand of phone and then unceremoniously killed off about 6 months later?

Were they real or just shit novelty, scams, or rebadges and sister brands of those multi brand companies like BBK?
- LG was the shit. Best DAC, first to the multi cam game, clean looks, innovative designs, pristine screens.
  I may add I've owned the V35, V40, V50 and V60. I'm a video specialist and the manual video control with audio levels have been a lifesaver more often than not.
  
  I miss my fingerprint reader on the back 😭
  
  V30, V35, V60, they put out world-beating designs without any of the shitware.
  But fuck one goat (V20 bootloop)...
  
  LG and HTC. The Razor Phone 2 was also pretty cool but didn't sell well so they didn't make a third gen
  
  The only LG phone I ever had, it just randomly decided to not boot one day. Apparently it was a common issue, and they were not giving any refunds, at least when I asked. I swore off of LG then, and I wouldn't be surprised if many other people did as well.
  I think the phone was the LG G4: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/LG_smartphone_bootloop_issues
  
  Went from v10 to v20 to v60. Not sure what I'll do when this dies.
  
  I have no idea what I'm gonna do when my LG eventually dies. I went from the v30 to the v40 and now the v50. Not a single phone on the market offers what I want in a phone anymore
  
  As the former owner of a G3, hard disagree.
  
  I'm running my V60 into the ground. Easily the best phone I've ever had and I'm really disappointed I won't be able to get another LG when this one dies.
  
  First really modular phone. But the conception and logic of LG was sometimes very disappointing like the humidity sensor on the mainboard blocking the touchscreen on the G5. That was betting against customers.
  
  I liked that my LG phone had a back made of metal. I don't like that phones are entirely glass now, it makes them feel delicate and fragile and they get covered with fingerprints immediately.
- Lot's of crypto phones as well, who ~~scammed~~ promised users to return them the value of the phone by using it to mine some shitcoin.

HTC was truly a pioneer.
- My first Android phone and it was amazing. Now I see that they make a "blockchain phone," I hope it’s a fucking joke.
- I still have a white HTC Dream, aka the G1. It’s still dope.
- The HTC Evo 3D was a bad ass!
- HTC is dead?
  
  Deader'n a door nail.

That’s capitalism, baby! Thanks for playing!
- "THERE'S NO CRYING IN CAPITALISM!"
  
  cries a lot in capitalism*
- Well, yes, that's how it works. What's the problem? We should have 500 factories cranking out pollution and waste vs. the cream of the crop rising up?
  
  That's not really how it works. I would bet most of these companies were building their phones in the same factories as other small time brands. It's not like they were all making their own chips and capacitors and assembling every last piece.
  
  I’m mocking the fact that the articles are often written in such a way that I should feel sorry for the companies that die, like how we killed the Diamond industry and the fashion industry and gasp the napkin industry

Smartphones have reached a maturity level where upgrades aren't really exciting. Sure there are the usual hardware power upgrades (and even those don't really open up new applications), but in terms of features they're not coming out with anything really novel. Last thing I could think of is bringing back folding which I do find appealing, but not for the cost or the reliability issues.
- One of them has to do 3d camera sooner than later. It’s so close… just need another camera at the bottom back of the phone.
  
  This has been tried and I've tried one out back in android KitKat days. Glassless display and all. HTC phone. They're now bankrupt. The battery lasted a few seconds, and the display was not amazing, and even if done better today it's a gimmic at best
  
  There have been plenty of phones and tablets with 3D camera systems. It's just not something that most consumers really want or need, so it tends not to become mainstream.
  It still comes up every now and then. The iPhone 15 has a computational 3D camera thing it can do, but I've seen virtually no buzz about the feature.
  
  The problem with 3D pictures is needing something to view them on. I've heard of one phone from maybe a decade ago that had a full 3D display that could be viewed from a wide range of angles, but it cost way too much and heavily sacrificed display resolution. Without widespread adoption, it's doomed to be mostly a gimmick. Some would argue that it'll always be a gimmick, but I think if it was widespread it'd basically be like high resolution i.e. an enhanced way of looking at content. Maybe not mindblowing after you're used to it, but worthwhile if it can be done without sacrificing too much.

I want a phone with a built in projector.. and a bigger battery.. and something else I haven't thought of yet.
I miss new features and innovation.
Since we have neither, give me modularization to let me have ^
- Phone makers: hmm this isn’t selling. Guess we’ll only make phones that look like and do the exact same things as every other phone.
- RIP project ARA.
  
  I hate that Google killed that project. Haken's block phone is still a great concept that is now used for Framework laptops. I hope thats someone can start doing that for mobiles. Fairphone is OK, but still far from Haken's idea.
- That was the Motorola Moto Z series for ya, had pins on the back for modules to be attached. Some modules were a battery pack, jbl speaker, a projector, and even a little printer to have the phone work like a polaroid
  
  I was just wiping my Force 2 the other day to install an unlocked OS and was impressed how much battery life that clip on pack gives it.
  Without it the Force 2 was the slimmest phone on the market and with the pack on it just feels normal. Yet I can get like three days out of it, and I bought it in 2017.
  
  Also the LGG5 to a lesser extent. I had a chin module that acted as an extra battery and fine control for the camera.

LG failed because for some stupid reason, they decided to sell 9 million different phones between countries.
- I miss LG phones. They always tried weird shit with their flagships; curved phone?done. Modular phone? Yes. Two screens? Yup. Also their V-series was probably the best phones ever for those of us who value good audio higher than great cameras.
  Edit: I used to work as a reviewer for a magazine and used the curved LG G4 for quite a while. I really liked it, though I never actually bought one.
  
  LG ending their mobile division really sucked, the V series phones were some of the best phones ever imo. I really miss my V30, the quad DAC was awesome and the camera was actually pretty amazing too. They also weren't bloated with unremovable shit like flagships are nowadays.
  
  Loved my dual screen v50. Wanted the V60, but it was never sold in Australia.

We are heading towards a future of Apple, Samsung, and Google, with even the latter two struggling to stay afloat.
And to be fair, Google deserves a lot of the blame for this happening.
- Yes. But I think most importantly, Samsung can spin out budget phones and actually sell it. No one's buying cheap Apple product. Currently mostly it is a status symbol... as most-if-not-all high end phones. Don't get me wrong, great devices but we all know what kind of personalities mostly go for Apple stuff.
  
  Looks like Samsung and Apple trade off on leader of global market share, but Samsung is second place when it isn't first.
  https://www.counterpointresearch.com/insights/global-smartphone-share/
- Tell me you only live in an American bubble without telling me you live in an American bubble.
  
  How much money do you think OEMs make off selling cheap Android phones?
- Google, sure. But Samsung has more marketshare than Apple.
  https://www.counterpointresearch.com/insights/global-smartphone-share/
  20% Samsung 17% Apple 12% Xiaomi 10% OPPO 8% Vivo
- I'd doubt Samsung will be struggling to stay afloat. They're so diversified they could pick one of their departments to throw money at and just run at a loss in perpetuity, if they felt like it. Apple makes phones, computers, and phone and computers accessories.
  Samsung makes phones and computers. And appliances. And chips. And container ships.
  
  And insurance, and healthcare, and construction, etc. They are involved in so many different industries it's almost hard to believe.
  
  Yea, was just talking about their phone lines, not them as a company.
- Huawei and Honor can both survive purely on domestic sales before you even worry about ROW.
  No idea why you think there are only three brands, or why you think the US is the only market that matters (it's fairly obvious you are US based)
- Absolutely nothing good came from them ending the Nexus program. I LOVED all the variety in Nexus. The Pixel phones are just shitty iPhone clones with barely better features.
  
  I wouldn't even say better features. This will be my last Pixel. I'm tired of Google just not maintaining their products at all.

what was their added value despite cutting down price with their poor hw and integration, shitty drivers?
I mean, FairPhone, Librem, PinePhone have real value and strategy, sure not perfect but this Vitamin (real chinese/french mark), LIPOq or VARK chinese knock-off phones, really, what did they expect?
those craps were like throwaway cameras in the 90's.
- But I loved my HTC 10. And let's not forget about LG. Also, Sony, Motorola, Nokia are just a shadow of their former selves.
  Today your main choices are Apple, Samsung or a Chinese brand (Oppo, Xiaomi etc). Sure, there are those niche phones like Pixels and Fairphones used mostly by nerds, but they are a tiny market.
  
  Sure, there are those niche phones like Pixels and Fairphones used mostly by nerds, but they are a tiny market.
  I feel attacked. Lol
  
  HTCs were glorious!

apple & china robbed us of so much, if you're a gadget guy.
i had sony phones, laptops, palm pilots, panasonic bit and bobs.
i get that technology has advanced infinitely in the last 20 years, but we are on a very narrow path at the moment.
- Sony still makes phones, some super high end, bur their marketing sucks balls
  
  As did their support - I had a p800 and p910, and while they looked cool, they were really not great compared to my original iPhone. Everyone here can romanticize all they want, but leaving symbian for ios was like a revelation; I can still remember the wonderment.
  Its so cool to be contrary and hate the successful thing now, but nothing was “stolen”. You always had choice. Its not what was chosen though - that how evolution works.
  
  Sony is the only company right now that has a flagship phone with great camera, removable battery, all the holes and comes in smaller sizing.
- Yeah…and google had nothing to do with that. It was ALL Apple & China.
  
  I’m sorry I didn’t mention your favourite brand
- What did China have to do with any of this?
  
  Cheap mass production of electronics largely based on existing designs

- Motorola phones for me and my family, they are reliable and work. At work they give me Samsung phones I guess that knox things sells to companies.
  
  Hate Samsung, they force their own keyboard into the work profile pure balls. It's bad at basic keyboard things.

They all did the same, without innovation there won't be another big smartphone brand.
- Somebody pls come along and make a phone with headphone jack, micro sd slot, and fingerprint sensor.
  
  If you make it all, and in a small frame, I'm buying right away.
  
  That's just a Thinkpad. If they keep making them smaller eventually it will fit in your pocket.
  
  Fairphone?
  
  Every non-Samsung and non-iphone.

Wow. I can hardly name 50 brands, let alone 500.

I thought there were only 2 brands
- I bet most people can name 6 or do.
  But that's about it.
  
  For most people in the US at least they can only identify iPhone or non-iPhone.
  
  For most people in the US at least they can only identify iPhone or non-iPhone.
- Anyone paying for flagship phones has too much money and no need for a camera that great.
  Blu and Moto phones all the way.
  
  Moto?
  Motorola lost my business when they sold me a phone and then provided a grand total of ONE OS upgrade its entire life (Moto G LTE, shipped with an outdated 4.4 build, and then got a single update to 5.1 before being abandoned forever).
  There is no potential for brand loyalty when the brand themselves tell their own customers to fuck off.
  
  No idea why you're being downvoted but I agree. My non flagship android is more than adequate for my demands of it.
  
  I miss LG.

I liked some of them. I still wonder how many were Amazon's random relabeled crap like AIUEO.

That's about 450 more than the market ever needed.

Its good weak companies are getting thined out. Its sad but necessary
- Uhhh
  Why is that good
  How is that good in any way
  Who does that help
  
  It clears out companies who fail to complete. There are only so many people willing to buy a phone at a time and too many phones on the market means that the phone companies won't be able to sell enough phones to stay afloat. This means that the companies who can't offer a compelling device to consumers will disappear.
  Its similar to natural selection