Vertu Is Dead
The luxury smartphone maker, catering to the elites, stars and the rich is dead. Established in 1998, Vertu, originally a part of Nokia, hit bankruptcy as a result of firm’s £128 million debt. The bankruptcy is reported to cost Vertu it’s UK’s manufacturing operation along with the 200 job cuts. The company changed hands before finally being acquired by the exiled businessman Murat Hakan Uzan in March. According to reports, Uzan plans to bring Vertu back from the dead.
The luxury smartphone provider manufactured phones which ran an older version of android and last year’s processors. But the precious metals, Sapphire Crystal Screens, fine hand-cut ostrich leather, precious metals, snake skin and jewels made up for the antiquated technology. The extravagant luxury smartphones were priced from $11,000 to excess of $30,000, offering a 24/7 concierge services as a freebie in the price. Given the hype created at its recent launches, it’s surprising that Vertu struggled to find a customer base for its high end luxury phones.
Even the launch of Vertu’s latest luxury device “The Constellation” in January 2017 couldn’t do much to save the company from hitting a dead end. Maybe the handmade exquisite anodized aluminium, wrapped in soft leather with a 5.5 inch Quad HD display and fingerprint reader wasn’t enough this time, and the high end world seems just happy with the iPhones and the edgeless Samsung Galaxy S8.
