HTC Announces UH OH Protection For the One M9
by Brandon Chester on March 18, 2015 8:00 AM EST- Posted in
- Smartphones
- HTC
- One M9
Smartphones are subject to much more daily wear and tear than other devices. They can also be fragile, and easy to drop. When this does occur, a user can only hope that their phone hasn't suffered damage from falling onto concrete or into water, as the cost to have a smartphone repaired can be substantial. Because of this, many users opt to continue using their phone despite having broken buttons or a shattered screen. According to information provided by HTC from a Google Insights survey, 25% of users currently use a damaged phone, while 47% who paid to have their phone repaired paid over $100. Rather than creating an extended warranty program that users can pay for, HTC has decided to take a different route. This new program is called HTC UH OH Protection.
UH OH Protection will be given to every user who purchases an HTC One M9 in the United States. The program will offer all of these users a free replacement device in the event that they shatter its display or cause damage due to water exposure during the first twelve months of ownership. It also covers replacements required due to switching carriers, which should make the issue of network locks a thing of the past for HTC One M9 users. Users who don't end up taking advantage of UH OH Protection will be given a $100 credit toward the purchase of the next HTC One device, and so users who take care of their devices won't be left out.
HTC will be hosting a question and answer session about the new UH OH Protection program at 12:00 EST today, and you can view that stream by clicking on the source below. I personally hope that someone raises the issue of second hand devices, and whether or not users who have a phone given to them or buy it second hand will still be eligible for UH OH Protection if the device is within its initial 12 month warranty period.
Source: HTC
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fokka - Wednesday, March 18, 2015 - link
logistics and cost is what i would say. USA is a big and kinda monolithic market, but also a market where they need sales and good press, so they offer uh oh. other regions like europe are much harder to service because of dozens of different countries, languages, etc, so they keep it US only, where they get the most bang/promo for their buck.also, such a move isn't quite cheap, since it could end up costing them upwards of a hundred bucks per device sold, once people replace their phone, or get 100$ off a new phone, so limiting it to one region saves money as well.
it's still an interesting concept/decision, we'll see how well htc fares with its tactic.
Gunbuster - Wednesday, March 18, 2015 - link
Wow to afford this.. it's almost like they are making a ton of profit selling $200 worth of hardware for $650+JeffroGymnast - Wednesday, March 18, 2015 - link
The cost of the hardware is not even close to the full cost of making the phone, though. R&D, labor, shipping, overhead, indirect costs, etc all add in to the cost of the phone.Gunbuster - Wednesday, March 18, 2015 - link
That's what the manufacturers are always crying poor about, yet there are $40 smartphones with 90% of the functionality and $200 laptops. Wake up and stop getting ripped off.PEJUman - Wednesday, March 18, 2015 - link
The engineers, managers and designers have to get paid, among other things. Every manufacturers factors this into the product cost.They can sell $40 phones because the bulk of tech & software on these value phones are already developed on the prior flagship(s). You'll never see cutting edge stuff on these $40 simply because there no room to amortize the development cost into a $10 profit margin.
WithoutWeakness - Wednesday, March 18, 2015 - link
So, just like every other phone manufacturer? At least HTC offers a protection plan like this with the phone for no additional cost. The extended-coverage plan most people are familiar with is Apple Care which costs $99 and extends the manufacturer's warranty an extra year and offers 2 years of phone support. If you drop your phone and have Apple Care the repair still costs an additional $79 fee (on top of the $99 you paid when you bought it) and it doesn't cover water damage. Sounds like HTC has far better coverage for drops/spills and offers a free hardware swap if you switch carriers to one that isn't compatible with your handset. Add in that it's included with every M9 they sell in the US and I can't see any reason to complain. I hope other manufacturers follow in their footsteps and begin offering these sorts of protection plans instead of the standard 1-year defect-only warranties.fokka - Wednesday, March 18, 2015 - link
of course it's a nice move from htc to offer guarantees like that, even if it's US only, but on the other hand, wouldn't it be better, if they just cut their MSRP by 100 bucks or more, so their new flagship would substantially undercut the competition in price?they could still offer a very generous warranty for 50-100$ more, but to me it seems lowering the price of entry would be a better strategy to lure customers to an m9, who would otherwise have to pay hundreds of bucks more for an s6, depending on how much storage they want.
Denithor - Thursday, March 19, 2015 - link
No. From their standpoint, offering a warranty makes much better sense than reducing the base price of the phone. Some percentage (likely fairly high) of purchasers will not need to replace their phones due to damage or carrier change. And while those people will receive "$100" off their next phone purchase - this locks those customers into HTC phones for another generation.FlamingDragon810 - Thursday, March 19, 2015 - link
This will be nice for all the people who accidentally drop and break their phones due to the overheating SD 810 processor raising the M9's exterior to 140 degrees Fahrenheit.Sn3akr - Thursday, March 19, 2015 - link
So the rest of the world is paying for free replacements to clumsy US citizens (or morons that just want a new device in the 11th hour and "UH OH" smashes it" Theese news just made the M9 appear nowhere in my options for my next device.