Alcatel One Touch announced its latest phablet idol 3 at MWC 2015 targeting young and music loving consumers looking for a great ultra-slim clever design, advanced multimedia experience on the go and sporting other premium hardware specs at a highly affordable and disruptive price-point.

Counterpoint Research team have been using and evaluating the 5.5″ phablet variant of the new idol 3 which was pre-launched in USA on 21st April and going on sale formally today i.e. April 27th 2015.

然而,在我们继续分析如何the device is and how it fit into the competitive environment, lets understand Alcatel One Touch’s latest competitive positioning.

According to Counterpoint ResearchMarket Monitor report,Alcatel One Touch at the end of 2014

• Fifth largestmobile phone vendorglobally在怪兽ms of shipments & share
• Fourth LargestinAmericas(North America & Central & Latin America)
• Second Largest in overallmobile phone & smartphones inCentral & Latin America
• Fifth Largestoverall inNorth America, whereas, smartphones volumesgrew 240% YoYin 2014 – fastest growing brand in USA
• One of the fastest growing smartphone brandgloballywith122% growth YoYin 2014

Summing up, Alcatel One Touch is becoming a challenger brand to incumbents such as Samsung, LG & Motorola in Americas and taking away share from these brands at different price points. With idol 3, Alcatel One Touch is looking to position the device quite opposite to the traditional distribution channels as well as at a highly competitive price points.

We have analyzed idol 3 from traditional 4Ps infact 5Ps of marketing i.e. Product, Price, Place, Promotions & Pacakaging

Alcatel One Touch idol 3 Specs:

a. Hardware:

• The idol 3 is anultra-slimsmartphone measure 7.4mm in thickness
• Idol 3 comes in dual form-factor variants – sporting a 4.7” display and 5.5” display similar to Apple iPhone 6 series. The US variant which is being launched and evaluated by Counterpoint Analysts is a5.5” phabletform-factor.
• The 5.5” idol 3 sports a FULL HD (1920 x 1080) resolution withOGSmulti-touch display offering a great viewing angle,high luminosityand sharpness withhigh pixel density(401 ppi). We have included some examples of text rendering which is quite sharp.
• Alcatel One Touch idol 3 display integrates aTechnicolor Color Enhancetechnology producing better color rendering outdoors in directsunlightboosting the overall usability on the move. We tested the performance in the sunny Mumbai day and were impressed by the color reproduction in the sunlight
• 阿尔卡特一碰在sm大幅上升artphone design experience curve. The idol 3 feels great in the hand with a perfectly thin form-factor,higher screen-body ratiominimizing the bezels compared to other phablets e.g. iPhone 6 Plus
• The idol 3 is the first phone to have anunique reversible featurewhere the interface adjusts to if the user picks up the device upside down or in the rightside-up direction. This is possible due to a highly symmetrical design again highlightsAlcatel’s design focuscentering around “better usability”solvingsub-conscious userpain points
• The idol 3 is powered byQualcomm’scutting edge Snapdragon 615 (MSM8939) system-on-chip with64-bit architecture–octa-core(1.5GHz quad core A53 & 1.0GHz quad-core A53 CPUs) perfect for a high-tier smartphone. Snapdragon 615 also integrates aCat 4 LTEmodem capable of download speeds up to 150 Mbps / 50Mbps for Uplink
• The 5.5” Phablet packs in a2GB RAMand16GB internal storage(10GB usable) and external storage capacity support for up to128GB microSD card
• The best feature of idol 3 is it comes with adualfront facing JBLspeakersand designed for optimalmultimedia experience. We tested the speakers & audio quality itsloudwithpremium equalizersetting and acompanion music (DJ) app
• Additionally, idol 3 features number ofsensors(g-sensor, proximity, light, e-compass, GPS), Bluetooth v4.1 LE, NFC,Wi-Fi Display, Wi-Fi Direct in addition to gestures and multiple multimedia codec support includingH.265&HD voice
• The idol 3 comes packed with 2910 mAh battery which is great for a 7.4mm thick phone. The battery life is quite decent compared to iPhone 6 though not exceptional as was down to a third in 13 hrs with normal to heavy use. So estimated battery life of 15-16 hrs with normal-to-heavy use and more for light-to-normal usage.

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• Idol 3 is also integrated with a13MP AutoFocus + LEDFlashrear camera&8MP front-facing camerawith feature-rich user friendly camera app UI
• The camera features plethora of features from 4x digital zoom, touch focus,手动对焦, face, smile detection & face beautification,HDRmode toPanorama,Time-Lapse, QR code scanner and much more
• We have put together some test pictures comparing withOnePlus One&iPhone 6cameras.
• Color reproduction is quite accurate compared to OnePlus One & iPhone 6. Though sharpness can be improved but still stands well against OnePlus but less than Apple

< Set 1 >

Alcatel One Touch idol 3

One Plus One

Apple iPhone 6

< Set 2 >

Alcatel One Touch

One Plus One

Apple iPhone 6

b. Software

• The idol 3 comes withAndroid L(or Lollipop or 5.0.2) The latest firmware has been updated by Alcatel One Touch.
• Since the device isunlocked, Alcatel One Touch canexpedite the rollout of the next Android versionupdate to the users
• TheUI在怪兽ms of iconography,layouton the idol 3looks much toned downcompared to Samsung Galaxy’s TouchWiz and mucheasy on eyes, cleanthoughvibrant
• Thedouble drawerpull down offers a mice parallax effect between thesettings & notification drawersbut from interaction standpoint isconfusingand takes multiple tries to interact with or select notifications or quick settings drawers and thus needs to be fixed

• Idol 3 comes preloaded with Facebook, Twitter, Flipboard, Evernote, AVG Antivirus, WPS Officesuite third party apps
• Idol 3 also includes its “Mix” app for the idol 3 which is powered by JBL Audio which enhances the overall music experience with virtual DJ deck. It includes dual equalizer settings, auto or manual mixing, disc scratching , other preset audio mixes into the songs as well as BPM analysis. This is great for music-savvy young consumers

Pricing

• Alcatel One Touch is positioning itself way ahead in the “affordable premium” segment with the idol 3.
• Alcatel One Touchidol3is launching in US formally on April 27th at anattractiveand disruptive price point of US$249.99 through Alcatel One Touch’s USonline storepowered by Amazon
• At this price point and specs it will directly compete againstAT&T LG Vigor Silk, HTC Desire Eye, Moto X(2nd Gen) which are almost 38%, 87%, 118% costlier but almost similar or lesser in specs than idol 3, a great value proposition for American consumers
• Similarly, idol 3 will also compete against the one year oldOnePlus Onewhich has been quite popular in USA selling through online channel in USA at a price point now of US$298

Place & Promotions

Alcatel’s go-to-market strategy with idol 3 in US is commendable bygoing online and unlocked(not locked to any carrier) considering they have almost gain footing along side ZTE to be the preferred no 3 vendor at multiple carriers.This offering allows consumers freedom to use the phone with compatibility on any of the nations largest to smallest GSM-LTE carriers i.e. tapping on the ongoing and encouraging BYOD trend at the carriers.

idol 3 is compatible withAT&T, T-Mobile, MetroPCS,Straight Talk, Walmart Family Mobile, Net10 & Regional Carriers. However, not including a CDMA-LTE variant reduces the total addressable market for the idol 3 down to almost 60% of the total US market.

In terms of promotions, we will have to see apart from online promotions and price exclusives at pre-orders how Alcatel One Touch promotes this phone to attract the younger demographics and price-to-value conscious consumers. Alcatel will have tostimulate the “online” and “unlocked” phone purchasing trendin USA with this attractive offering and take lead in this segment which accounts to roughly 3%-5% of the overall USA mobile phone sales.

Packaging

The package which we received the phone is beautiful with targeted messaging with every opening of flap highlighting key features, very innovating package marketing. We hope Alcatel keeps this messaging highlighted if the retail package differs from the one below: