Apple, Samsung, and the Irrelevance of the American Smartphone Market

Brand loyalty and political hostility has taken away any intrigue left in the US phone market

A lot of people have started to compare smartphones to the home appliances industry. The comparison feels appropriate since a lot of the excitement around phones has waned and buying a new smartphone is oftentimes as unexciting as buying a new toaster. But I would amend that statement to say that the US smartphone industry is lacking excitement.

It has become abundantly clear that when it comes to smartphones in the States, it is a two-horse race between Apple and Samsung. In the last few years, we have seen the demise of former heavyweights in the American smartphone market like HTC, BlackBerry, and LG bow out of the industry to focus on areas where they saw profitability such as virtual reality and televisions. But this is not the case internationally as upstart Chinese phone companies have begun to gobble market share without even having a strategy to sell in the United States. The US smartphone market in many ways has now become irrelevant on a global scale thanks to the modern political climate and a culture that worships brand names.

The Rise of Chinese Phones

In modern American society, the thought of China is a complicated one. As a dominant global superpower, China strikes fear into many Americans. It is the threat to America’s place atop the global food chain that continues to get stronger. China has always been a hub for western companies to do their manufacturing business because of lower labor costs, but in recent years the country has shown ambitions to be more than just the manufacturing hub. Seeing the success of tech companies in Japan and South Korea gave way to the rise of the Chinese tech scene.

Chinese phone makers after all had all the manufacturing resources available to them in their home country, which put them at a distinct advantage over competitors from Europe and the United States. And in recent years, these companies have spread like wildfire. Many Americans may not know this, but three of the top…