Why You Don’t Need a New Phone—But They’ll Convince You Anyway

The smartphone market, once a dynamic arena of innovations, now faces a paradox; while tech giants such as Apple, Google, Samsung etc keep releasing new models and 'upgrades' from the previous generation of phones, these 'upgrades' are rather niche rather than being breakthroughs. For years, each new phone released promised revolutionary breakthroughs, such as Apple's shift from iPhone 8 to iPhone X , or Samsung for the matter switching from its 'TouchWiz' UI to the 'OneUi' in 2018. But after that, the industry has reached a plateau. Annual upgrades are now largely perceived as offering only incremental improvements, leading to a sense of disengagement and even "boredom" among consumers.1 This shift challenges the traditional consumer expectation of constant, radical innovation, reshaping the competitive dynamics of the industry. The fact is, smartphones have become so powerful in the last 5-6 years that they can actually last longer than their predecessor, therefore eliminating the demand of purchasing a new smart phone for the coming 10 or more years. 

For a large segment of smart phone users, whose main tasks on smart phones are using social media, surfing the web and basic communication, the incremental performance does not justify the significant increase of cost in purchasing a newer model which has 99.9% the same specs as the previous generation. For example, the iPhone 15 and iPhone 16 are more or less the same phones but differ in placement of camera modules, a new camera button on the side and new colors. But the iPhone 16 costs INR 79,999 and on the other hand the iPhone 15 costs around INR 69,999 (prices taken from the official apple.com/in/shop/buy-iphone website). Apple can't really justify an increase of INR 10,000 for a model which is just a minor upgrade from the last model. 

Now in order to tackle the problem of diminishing demand, companies have started to employ a tactic known as planned obsolescence. In its broadest sense, it refers to the deliberate design of a product with a limited lifespan to encourage replacement. In the context of smartphones, this often manifests less as outright physical failure and more through strategic software and security update policies that can render older devices functionally or psychologically outdated over time. While companies do offer 5-7 years of software support, the new software upgrades are usually significantly more demanding on the memory and battery resources, rendering issues such as battery life, lagging phones and sometimes not receiving certain features all together. For instance, Motorola cites that they cannot provide the new Moto AI features in their Motorola edge 40 and lower end versions of Moto Edge 50 models because "they lack the hardware capability" when in fact these phones are perfectly capable of running third party AI applications such as Google Gemini assistant or ChatGPT by OpenAI. Therefore in order to experience the MotoAI functions, consumers have to purchase the new Moto Edge 60 lineup or the expensive Moto Razr series. 

In conclusion, the smartphone industry is navigating a mature and complex phase, characterized by lengthening upgrade cycles, sophisticated forms of perceived obsolescence, and a pervasive convergence in design. Consumer decisions to upgrade are not simplistic, but rather a nuanced interplay of psychological needs, such as the desire for uniqueness and the influence of conformity. These decisions are further shaped by the allure of perceived benefits, particularly emotional and social value, and are often anchored by cognitive biases that favor the status quo, especially when new offerings are perceived as overperforming or insufficiently innovative. For manufacturers, adapting to this new reality necessitates a strategic evolution. This involves a sustained focus on optimizing the overall user experience, simplifying upgrade pathways to reduce consumer friction, and potentially embracing business models that emphasize extending product utility and lifecycle rather than solely pushing for rapid replacement.