Robust rise for rugged phones amid market fragility

The market for rugged smartphones, which can take rough handling and being dropped without their screens being broken, is bucking the stagnant trend in the wider market.

New data from CCS Insight, the research company, predicts the market for rugged handsets will boom 25 per cent this year to 22.2m units, as more workers opt for durable phones that can withstand a harsh environment. CCS expects the niche to continue to expand rapidly, with volumes of 54.5m by 2021.

This is in contrast to growth of less than 4 per cent for the global smartphone market, which has slowed as more consumers have opted to hold on to their phones for longer. Dixons Carphone issued a profit warning last week, saying a lack of innovation in the mainstream smartphone market had pushed more consumers to opt for SIM-only deals for their existing phones, rather than buying a new handset.

Yet the makers of rugged handsets have proved more active, in adding useful new functions to their handsets such as thermal imaging cameras and barcode scanners.

The market for rugged phones is split between consumer models and more expensive ultra rugged ones. Consumer rugged phones include the Cat Phone, made by Britain’s Bullitt Group, Samsung’s Galaxy Active and Xcover models, plus ones from Japan’s Kyocera and lesser known brands including Evolveo and RugGear. Ultra rugged models aimed at industry are made by Sonim, Motorola Solutions and Bartec Pixavi.

Rugged phones represent a small portion of the overall smartphone market, which is expected to reach 1.6bn unit shipments this year. Yet CCS believes more consumers that work in manual labour are using their rugged phones as a primary device, given improvements in the design of rugged phones to make them less “thick and bulky”.

Bullitt, which makes phones on behalf of brands including Caterpillar, Land Rover and Kodak, and is Britain’s only remaining phonemaker after the demise of luxury brand Vertu, will reveal two new rugged handsets at the IFA Consumer Electronics Show in Berlin this week.

Ben Wood, head of research at CCS Insight, said that the durability of rugged phones makes the devices more attractive to consumers who are fed up with fragile phones. “The mainstream Android smartphone market is now dominated by a small number of large players offering similar looking devices with near similar features. Differentiation is becoming increasingly challenging,” he said.

Tim Shepherd, a director at Bullitt Group, said: “The research clearly identifies a problem with many mobile phones and it’s understandable that consumers are becoming increasingly frustrated with the fragility of their phones not coping with the demands of their daily lives.”