LG debuts new flagship smartphone
LG ignited the MWC 2020 cancellation fuse by being the first vendor to announce its absence due to the coronavirus concerns. The OEM last week unveiled its latest flagship, the V60 Thinq 5G Dual Screen, which was originally scheduled to announced at the show. The new phone is the 5G upgrade to the LG V50 Thinq phone introduced at last year’s MWC 2020. Running on Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 865 chipset (which also powers Samsung’s new Galaxy S20 lineup), the V60 Thinq 5G stands out with its attachable second screen that is quite handy for multi-tasking (running multiple apps simultaneously), but otherwise is somewhat inferior to the new Galaxy S20 phones in other technical specifications such as screen refresh rate or camera. The phone’s commercial availability date has yet to be announced but it’s expected to hit shelves of the major U.S. carriers including AT&T, T-Mobile, Verizon and US Cellular later in March.
The NPD Take:
- While there is no word on the expected cost of the new phone, LG’s recent flagship performance suggest that the phone will be discounted heavily immediately at launch. LG has long been struggling with its flagship series (the V and G series phones) that have not been able to “connect” with consumers. The OEM’s design innovations such as curved form factor (the G4), modular built (the G5), the boombox screen (the G7) or the gesture controls (the G8) have been great marketing statements but they were simply marginal features at best. With the emergence of new brands like Google’s Pixel and OnePlus, coupled with Apple and Samsung strengthening their lead in the high-end space, LG has unfortunately been forced to compete on price, and the new V60 Thinq is poised to experience a similar fate as its predecessors.
- Foldable displays are getting a lot of attention, and it’s almost ironic for LG (which is known for its superiority in the display business) to address consumers’ desire in obtaining more screen real estate without sacrificing on compactness via a dual-screen solution that doubles the size of the phone. LG’s dual-screen solution has appeal for multi-taskers or gamers, but it won’t help LG target the mass market.
Verizon mmWave 5G network hits record speeds
Verizon last week announced its live mmWave 5G network in Texas achieved a peak downlink speed of 4.2 Gbps. This record speed was attained via carrier aggregation (of its low and high band 5G spectrums) on a Samsung 5G New Radio infrastructure. Notably, the multi-gigabit speed test was done on a Motorola 5G model, but Verizon did not disclose any specifics on the device.
The NPD Take:
- Verizon delivering 4.2 Gbps speeds during its carrier aggregation trials cannot be downplayed by the classic “it was a test run done on a uncongested network” argument. This is a testiment that carriers will actually be able to deliver on their 1 Gbps+ downlink speeds in commercially operating congested networks. Qualcomm’s new 5G silicons are capable of delivering up to 7 Gbps speeds in theory, thus we should expect to see even faster downlink speeds during such test runs.
- Motorola’s contribution in this test run signals to its participation in Verizon’s 2020 5G device lineup. The OEM was indeed Verizon’s 5G launch partner (via the 5G Moto Mod attachable unit supporting the Motorola Z3 and Z4 phones), and we have long expected the OEM to enjoy additional shelf space at Verizon in return for the exclusivity it provided on the new Motorola razr foldable phone. Motorola was poised to introduce a new phone at MWC 2020 had the show not cancelled, and it’s likely that Verizon’s test run was done using this alleged new 5G flagship.
StraightTalk customer base surpasses all other Tracfone brands in Q4 2019
Tracfone, which is owned by the Mexican telecom conglomerate America Moviles, is the nation’s largest MVNO with over 20 million subscribers. America Moviles last week announced that Tracfone’s total subscriber base declined 3.7% to 20.9 million subscribers, while its ARPU increased 4.7% to $27. The biggest highlight of the earnings release was the continued success of the StraightTalk brand, whose subscriber count surpassed all other Tracfone brands combined. StraightTalk ended the quarter with 9.4 million subscribers, which is the highest figure ever reported. It’s noteworthy to mention that Tracfone had over 26 million customers on its MVNO brands prior to 2017, but it had not provided brand specific details until 2018.
The NPD Take:
- Tracfone’s success with its StraightTalk brand is highly correlated to Walmart’s ongoing efforts in transforming its mobile phone business. StraightTalk has an exclusive distribution partnership with Walmart, which has become a hub to attract prepaid customers.
- StraightTalk surpassing all other Tracfone brands combined is also a direct result of the increase in overall smartphone adoption (many featurephone/flip phone customers are upgrading to smartphones) as well as the increase in cellular data usage on smartphones. StraightTalk’s unlimited rate plans attract many prepaid customers as well as postpaid BYOD customers.