Can Kazam Break Into A Multibillion Pound Market?

Most people know that the electronics market is one of the most competitive and innovation-driven markets you can be in today, and the current smartphone duopoly is ruled by Samsung and Apple. As a new start-up company, it is hard to get your foot in the door of this highly competitive market and yet that does not stop many of them from trying. The newest player that wants a piece of the smartphone hardware cake is a company called Kazam.

Kazam was founded by former HTC UK executives Michael Coombes and James Atkins in 2013. Details on how the company plans on competing with Samsung and Apple are still hazy, but it has been suggested that they wish to focus on after sales service, which is a niche approach that might very well give them a chance on the market. [pullquote]Kazam promises to deliver “quality phones, relevant technology, innovative services and disruptive pricing.”[/pullquote] Recently they managed to strike a retail deal with the large independent mobile retailer Phones 4U. The Kazam Trooper X3.5 smartphone and Kazam Life B4 feature phone will soon be part of the Phones 4u mobile phone range.

It is not hard to imagine why one would want to be a part of the mobile hardware market, though; 31.7 million people in the UK (64.1% of British mobile phones users) currently own a smartphone. By 2017, that number is expected to rise to 81%, which would account for two-thirds of the UK’s population. A similar increase in numbers can be seen in the usage of tablets in the UK. At the moment, one-third of the British population owns one and by 2017, it looks like every second Briton will have a tablet. It is not surprising to see that PC and laptop sales have recently slumped, and it is looking particularly bleak for PCs as their sales are expected to drop by 8.4% from 2013 until 2017. The technology market is definitely heading in the direction of tablets and smartphones.

Entering this market might be risky, but it might also ultimately be very rewarding for companies such as Kazam. Startup companies need to be aware that over the last few years the quality bar for mobile hardware and software has been raised immensely. It is thus not a huge surprise that investors in the mobile software market have become a lot more cautious.

There is just no guarantee that something such as a new app will take off be the next Instagram or whether it will ultimately be a waste of money. Instead, many now invest their money in companies that make the necessary tools for mobile software developing companies. This only goes to show how difficult it can be to successfully enter this market, but the trend towards more and more people using smartphones and tablets shows that that is where the future of mobile computing lies.