The Diminishing Feature Phones

It was around this time last year that I thought if feature phones will stay alive with the giant monster known as smart phones on their tale. Well it seems as though I was correct: the variety of feature phones have been declining ever since then.

January of 2010 was when I first received a phone. I was in 7th grade, I think I deserved one. So I got myself a Motorola Rival, a small, QWERTY, messaging feature phone that did the job until a few problems pushed me to my next phone. At that time of purchasing the Rival, I had a wide variety of feature phones for my choosing. Ranging from LG to Samsung, there were at least 15 feature phones I could have chosen from. 

August of 2010. After 2 replacements of the Rival, I was done. I purchased a Samsung Reality, which at the time was considered to be in Verizon's 3G Multimedia category. This category allowed some Internet access and more options than a feature phone, but less options than smart phones. At this time as well, I could have stuck to another feature phone as there were the same amount of feature phones, if not more. But I still had this feeling that there was a change on the way. 

It is May of 2011. Now I have been through 2 more devices and currently own a Verizon iPhone. A recent trip to the Verizon store showed me the decline in the feature phones and no sign at all of the 3G Multimedia category of phones either. The store was basically divided into two sections: the smart phones (which took up 95% of the store), and the feature phones. The feature phones just had 2 QWERTY style phones and the rest were the cheap flip-phones. The rest of the store was filled with Blackberry's, iPhones, and Androids. 

Why?

When Android and iPhone was released to the public was when the feature phones knew their downfall was coming soon. As more and more people began to buy these type of smart phones, more competitors joined in to develop these. The more smart phones that were released, the less space there was for the feature phones. It was a continuing cycle until finally, the amount of feature phones decreased into a small corner of the store. Based on these statistics, feature phones will be completely gone by early to mid 2012. 

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