Microsoft cuts Surface Duo’s price to $1,000
Microsoft has lower the value of its Floor Duo smartphone by $400, a sizeable discount 5 months soon after the product’s launch.
Microsoft launched the dual-screen, Android-centered cellular phone in the U.S. in September at $1,400. This week’s lower provides the value tag to $1,000. It arrives considerably less than a 7 days before Microsoft’s Feb. 18 launch of the machine internationally.
The Floor Duo’s advertising place is its dual screens, which measure 8.1 inches diagonally. Microsoft stated the screens make improvements to worker productivity, particularly for people who use the 365 office environment suite. Staff members could have a Groups assembly open on just one screen and overview a PowerPoint presentation on the other.
The machine has not lit the industry on fire, nevertheless. Microsoft delivered 183,000 Floor Duos in 2020, IDC analyst Ryan Reith stated. In distinction, Apple delivered 90.1 million phones in just the fourth quarter of the calendar year.
Smartphone profits have been down in typical in 2020, in aspect mainly because COVID-19-connected economic uncertainty produced significant cellular phone charges unattractive. A lot of shoppers turned to the utilised-cellular phone industry in the facial area of cellular phone charges topping $1,000.
Suppliers adjusted, with Apple and Samsung advertising the foundation types of their hottest flagship phones for considerably less than $1,000.
While this week’s Floor Duo value lower was considerable, the machine even now fees $1,000. Market observers stated a four-determine value tag could make shoppers step back and reassess their need for the machine.
Constellation Investigation founder R “Ray” Wang stated foldable and dual-screen phones as a entire failed to excite consumers. He noted Samsung dropped the charges for its foldable-screen flip cellular phone, the Galaxy Z Flip 5G, before this thirty day period. That $250 lower lessened the phone’s charge from $1,450 to $1,200.
“The classification hasn’t discovered a superior use case nevertheless,” Wang stated.
Gartner analyst Tuong Nguyen stated Microsoft likely did not hope the Floor Duo to be a huge seller but saw it as far more of a exam balloon.
“I seen this start as Microsoft dipping its toes into the smartphone industry to get some immediate perception into it,” he stated.
Mike Gleason is a reporter covering finish-user computing subjects these types of as desktop management. He earlier covered communities in the MetroWest location of Massachusetts for the Milford Everyday Information, Walpole Moments, Sharon Advocate and Medfield Press. He has also worked for newspapers in central Massachusetts and southwestern Vermont and served as a neighborhood editor for Patch. He can be discovered on Twitter at @MGleason_TT.
