Why the resistance to dual-SIM mobile phones?

For some time now, dual SIM phones have been hot among the masses. Majority of the handsets that have these are China phones or locally branded ones like MyPhone, Cherry Mobile or Torque.

I actually wrote a similar entry last year — Why Dual-SIM phones arenâ€™t picking up?

I remember, about 8 year ago, people would go to Greenhills and have their Nokia phones converted to dual SIM phones. It involved a replacement part attached at the back of the handset and makes the battery compartment bulging at the back.

Then we got them dual-SIM China-phones that are uber-cheap with price range from Php2,000USD 34INR 2,889EUR 32CNY 248 – Php4,000USD 68INR 5,778EUR 65CNY 496. That really got a lot of attention (and we’ve covered that topic here several times, including that Kapuso Mo, Jessica Soho feature).

The big brands seem to take their time in introducing similar handsets. The first one I’ve encountered was from Samsung. Not sure if it was the Samsung Fizz or the SGH-780 (Samsung actually has a total of 5 dual SIM phones but I’ve only seen one model introduced locally). Earlier this month, I also saw LG putting out an ad for their very own dual SIM phone under the model LG GX200. I have yet to see Nokia and Sony-Ericsson showing off their own versions.

I guess the main reason why the big brands are not too eager with dual-SIM phones despite of the growing demand ia because it will just eat into their market share.

We’re already familiar with people owning 2 or more phones at the same time. Instead of buying two handsets, consumers might settle for only 1 unit with dual-SIM capability. That trend could eventually affect total sales and margins of the big brands. That’s on top of the other reasons I mentioned here earlier (i.e. battery life and telco subsidy).

Nevertheless, at least we’re seeing the big names producing their own dual-SIM although the ones they’re making are mostly entry-level phones. I don’t think they’ll dot he same with their high-end smartphones though.

Abe Olandres

Abe is the founder and Editor-in-Chief of YugaTech with over 20 years of experience in the technology industry. He is one of the pioneers of blogging in the country and considered by many as the Father of Tech Blogging in the Philippines. He is also a technology consultant, a tech columnist with several national publications, resource speaker and mentor/advisor to several start-up companies.

https://www.yugatech.com

35 Comments

deuts says:

15 years ago

I agree to that. Most probably, with dual phones, consumers will be happy with having just one phone.
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Carlo says:

15 years ago

I think youre right. Its eating the market share. Why sell one phone when you can sell two?
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Onynz says:

15 years ago

Until SE and N integrate the dual-sim tech to their Xperias and N90s will be the time people would pick up the said technology….
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kinny says:

15 years ago

I own 2 dual sim phones: Verzio Duplii exec and my/phone Q21. They come in really handy while travelling or when one owns a small bag.
I actually love the my/phone more due to it’s longer batt life, elegant form factor and it’s resemblance to the blackberry bold 9000. The duplii exec may be 3g but it looks cheap, has a short batt life and is kinda slow.

I love the fact that you can switch off one sim when you do not want to be disturbed by work on a holiday.
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Andre Marcelo-Tanner says:

15 years ago

Why? Why not triple sim, or quadruple sim.
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MCV says:

15 years ago

at the very least, it’s about sales. people who are supposed to buy two phones would then just purchase a single handset.

also, i think it also has to do with battery life. this is probably why only low-end phones will embrace this dual-sim technology, because it eats up batteries pretty fast.
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Abe Olandres says:

15 years ago

@andre – there are actually triple-SIM and quad-SIM phones made in China. I saw a couple of them sold in Alibaba before.
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ryan ang says:

15 years ago

At first I thought the headline tries to convey that the market isn’t biting the dual sim phones. It seems that the manufacturers ain’t the one doing the biting :P

I’ve used a dual sim phone. the Samsung D800. It is a slide up EDGE phone with support for two sim cards. I ended up using two mobile phones again. It wasn’t that the implementation is poor; but the phone didn’t actually have the features I wanted (Like when you said that dual sim phones from name brand manufacturers are feature phones more than smartphones).

What if they’d release a HD2 or an EVO 4G (assuming it’s GSM) with dual sim support no? That’ll be uber nice :P
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anonymous says:

15 years ago

what’s the mobile phone habit in the U.S.? i don’t think uso sa kanila two mobile phones for several reasons. for one, calling a number regardless if mobile or landline, it costs the same. second, they can retain their mobile telephone numbers when changing from one mobile network operator to another.

dito sa pinas, one mobile phone fone for unli calls (Sun cellular) and another for Globe or Smart or Wireless Landline.
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simplynice93 says:

15 years ago

Big brand cellphone manufacturers don’t put dual-sim feature coz some countries have a one-phone-one-sim policy. Other brands such as myPhone cater more to Filipino’s needs like dual-sim, analog TV, AM tuner, etc.
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