[HTC One X] BarryH_GEG:
For who? It was never used as a marketing name in the U.S. and Germany is the only EU market that even made the top 10. It's an awfully big world out there and the UK isn't the center of it.

(1) China: 906.8 million cellular connections (Q2 2011)

Mobile penetration = 65%

Top carriers: China Mobile, China Unicom, China Telecom

(2) India: 851.7 million cellular connections (Q2 2011)

Mobile penetration = 71%

Top carriers: Bharti Airtel, Reliance, Vodafone Essar

(3) United States: 320.2 million cellular connections (Q2 2011)

Mobile penetration = 102%

Top carriers: Verizon Wireless, AT&T Mobility, Sprint Nextel

(4) Russia: 222.1 million cellular connections (May 2011)

Mobile penetration = 155%

Top carriers: MTS, VimpelCom, MegaFon

(5) Brazil: 217.3 million cellular connections (Q2 2011)

Mobile penetration = 113%

Top carriers: Vivo, Claro, TIM

(6) Indonesia: 178 million cellular connections (Q4 2010)

Mobile penetration = 75%

Top carriers: Telkomsel, Indosat, XL Axiata

(7) Japan: 121.9 million cellular connections (July 2011)

Mobile penetration = 95%

Top carriers: DoCoMo, Au (KDDI), Softbank

(8) Germany: 111 million cellular connections (Q2 2011)

Mobile penetration = 135%

Top carriers: T-Mobile, Vodafone, E-Plus

(9) Pakistan: 108.9 million cellular connections (Q2 2011)

Mobile penetration = 62%

Top carriers: Mobilink, Telenor, Ufone

(10) Mexico: 93.7 million cellular connections (Q1 2011)

Mobile penetration = 84%

Top carriers: Telcel, Movistar, Grupo Iusacell​

"Enthusiasts" (us) make up 5% of the phone buying market. The other 95% don't care about what you listed. Why do you think Samsung's SGS3 advertising has moved in the direction it has? Even when Apple's upgraded their h/w they only talk about it secondarily and in the context of a benefit to performing a particular task.

"Samsung has wisely woken up to the fact that it’s context, not cores, that makes a device successful. I’ve written about that before, as a challenge the Android hardware industry (and the chip manufacturers whose silicon powers those devices) faces as a whole; in short, it’s easy to wax lyrical about how potent your processor is, and how many pixels it can push, but it’s a lot tougher to explain to a consumer why that should be important to them. It’s something Apple does well with the Retina display on the new iPad: not just resolution for the sake of it, but explaining why it has a positive impact on photos, text and video."

http://www.slashgear.com/has-functionality-finally-caught-up-with-the-android-spec-race-06241875/

You guys also lose sight of something. Every smartphone needs a carrier. The manufacturers need the carriers more than a carrier needs a specific manufacturer. While the retail price of the SGS3 remained the same as the SGS2, a friend who's an executive at a Canadian carrier told me their costs went up 15%. They find that totally unacceptable. A carrier could give a crap about what phone their subscribers use. All they want are more contracted post-paid subscribers and only offer phones as a way of securing them. The carriers want HTC, Motorola, LG, and Panasonic to succeed to put price pressure on Samsung and Apple. HTC got its start white labeling phones for carriers before they decided to develop their own brand. With carrier support they have a guaranteed distribution channel. Two new flagship devices are being introduced on AT&T (1.7GHz Teg3/Icera LTE XL) and Verizon (5" phablet). Those are the two largest carriers in the third largest market in the world.

There's a lot more to selling devices than wrapping buses and running commercials. HTC lost its way last year not because of marketing but because they were deploying one mediocre device after another. And quite a few of them were pretty bland to put it kindly. The things their doing appear to be moves in the right direction. But they lost a lot of ground and the clock is ticking. The worst that will befall them is that they’ll end up merging or forming a JV with Motorola, LG, Panasonic, or Sony. They are all actually in worse shape than HTC in mobile but HTC’s getting all the press because their fall from grace was more dramatic. That and all the others are diversified and are extremely profitable in other verticals. Even Motorola has cable set top boxes to fall back on.