It has become a tradition that every year, smartphone manufacturers around the world release at least one device that showcases the company’s prowess in smartphone technology, this is what we refer to as a flagship device – it is the best a company has to offer.
Closer home, this remains true with the most popular smartphone brands around, both in market share and brand recognition. TECNO and Infinix, both independent brands owned by Transsion Holdings, have their Phantom and Zero flagship series which they have been released every year until 2018.
2018 has been full of surprises in the smartphone industry, for the most part, these surprises have been great – we saw the notch shrink into a waterdrop from that ugly block, we got in-display fingerprint scanners and in Kenya, Huawei decided to shake up the market with the launch of the Y9 (2019). This year, we also saw both TECNO and Infinix jump on the notch trend and some AI-centered photography but that’s as far as they went with trends.
Unlike the other years, we will not be seeing any TECNO Phantom device this year, neither will we be seeing an Infinix Zero. Reason? We honestly don’t know. There’s no official communication from the two brands aside from acknowledging that indeed there will be no flagship phones. The news about TECNO shelving plans of their 2018 Phantom flagship came out earlier in August this year. Like I mentioned before, no official reason was given for this decision but in the place of a Phantom, consumers would get another Camon device – the Camon 11.
Infinix, on the other hand, has been quiet altogether. Their decision to halt the production of their expected Zero 6 flagship seems like a last minute decision as the device was already under closed beta testing and had been spotted on Kenya’s Communication Authority approved device list.
Regardless of the reasons behind the decision to hold back their 2018 flagships, we hope this does not signify the end of the Phantom and Zero series from TECNO and Infinix respectively. Seeing that TECNO killed the Boom series in a similar manner.
