Does Phone Size Matter? Why Small Phones Are Failing To Make It Big

It goes without saying, everyone loves a phone with a comfortable handfeel, but small phones have to up their smartphone game to survive. Fitting into one's hand is no longer going to be enough.

By Akriti Rana and Nimish Dubey

Back in 2020 when Apple introduced the iPhone 12 mini, compact phone enthusiasts rejoiced. The move from the most popular smartphone brand came as a confidence boost to those who despised the fact that big and bigger phones had become such a raging success over the past few years. This lobby believed that a phone’s success should be independent of the display real estate that it offers, and should be more about how well the phone sits in one’s hand and how easy it is to use with a single hand. 

The End Of The Mini Road? 

Apple was not the only smartphone manufacturer to have given in to the ‘small phone philosophy’. Other major smartphone players like Google and Samsung also dipped their toes in the small sized smartphone pool. Smartphones like Galaxy S10e, Google Pixel 4a were also remarkably compact in a world that is dominated by massive screens. 

But even with the big behemoths of the smartphone world walking down the compact smartphone lane, small sized phones have unfortunately failed to make it big. As a result, strong rumours have started circulating about the discontinuation of the iPhone 13 mini and the fact that the iPhone 14 series might not see a mini iPhone at all. 

Small Phones, Small Sales

If this indeed happens, we cannot say we have been blindsided, especially considering how poor the sales of both minis — iPhone 12 mini and iPhone 13 mini — have been. The iPhone 12 mini globally sold less than 20 per cent of the regular iPhone 12. Many attributed its poor performance to the existence of the iPhone SE 2020 which came with a much more affordable price tag, was compact in size too and had sizable sales numbers. Then came the iPhone 13 mini, which had no such sibling going against it. But even with iPhone SE out of the picture, the iPhone 13 failed to produce solid sales figures. 

As per a report by Counterpoint Research on weekly iPhones sales in China, iPhone 13 mini only makes for 5 per cent of the total sales of the iPhone 13 series phones. The iPhone 13 leads this list with 51 per cent, followed by iPhone 13 Pro Max with 23 per cent and then comes the iPhone 13 Pro with 21 per cent. A key point to be noted here is that all these devices are more expensive than the iPhone 13 mini, which was the most affordable of the series. 

Small Phones, Big Problems

These sales numbers might come as a shock to some considering how compact phones, in general, get extremely positive reviews. And many of these reviews highlight their small form factor as their biggest USP. This means, while the iPhone 13 and the iPhone 13 mini are the exact same smartphones in terms of innards, the looks and size of the iPhone 13 mini make it more distinguishable as compared to the iPhone 13. But all the attention that small phones like the iPhone 13 mini get does not get translated into sales.  

There are some really concrete reasons for this. Over the last few years, phone displays have been growing bigger. This may have made them difficult to use and hold but bigger size of smartphones also meant more display real estate. This not only made viewing content on smartphones much more enjoyable but also offered gamers a bigger canvas to play with. The big display played a crucial role in gaming as the bigger displays made it easier to use multiple fingers on the display and also added more visual detail to game play. 

The added inches of display real estate also made it easier for people to use their smartphones as mini computers when they were on the go. Writing long emails, editing brief videos and photos have all become possible because the phones these days have simply expanded their horizons (quite literally).

Another reason why big smartphones are so popular is because their form factor also allows them to pack in bigger batteries which means they can keep up with the power demands of those big displays and make them last much longer than most phones with smaller displays. 

While there are takers for a good small phone that can fit in the palm of one’s hand comfortably, those takers might not be enough to keep smartphone manufacturers interested in creating newer, improved versions of these petite devices.

Any Room For A Small Phone In A Big (Display) World?

So does this mean the era of the small phones is officially coming to an end? Well, while the numbers suggest so, small phones did manage to make a comeback of sorts in the big-display world. This means dismissing the possibility of a small phone-inclusive future may be a little too harsh. 

But if small phones really want to get themselves a permanent role in the competitive smartphone movie and not just make guest appearances every now and then, they really have to bring something more exceptional to the table than just the compact form factor. For instance, using the iPhone 13 mini as an extremely portable and adventure camera with that display and connectivity that allows you to do some basic edits on the go suddenly makes it sound much more than just a small phone. 

It goes without saying, everyone loves a phone with a comfortable handfeel, but small phones have to up their smartphone game in order to survive. Fitting into one's hand easily is no longer going to be enough.