During the early 2000s, handsets began to transform from unwieldy, pragmatic machines into compact multipractics and soon-to-be fashion symbols. Siemens, then a major phone brand in Europe, embarked on a quest to corner the nascent fashion phone market with its Xelibri series. It didn’t end well.
The Time When Phones Had Personality
The first half of the aughts was arguably the most exciting time to be a fan of mobile phones. Instead of the samey, all-screen no-fun rectangular slabs we’ve got today, the phones released during that era tried to one-up one another with exciting, bold designs while at the same time attempting to stay usable and not veer too far off into the avant-garde.
Nokia was arguably at the helm of this trend ever since it launched the cult-classic 8110, the phone featured in the first Matrix movie. With the 8110, mobile phones stopped being phones but portable, and transformed into status symbols.
Thanks to the company’s other legendary designs, such as the 8810 and 3310, Nokia comfortably held the largest share of the 2001 mobile phone market, controlling a larger chunk of the market than its three closest competitors combined.
Sitting in third place among the most popular phone brands in 2001 was Siemens, a German giant looking to expand beyond Europe, the company’s stronghold. But simply besting its Finnish rival wasn’t enough; Siemens wanted to do it in style, and at the same time, corner the then-nascent fashion phone market. Thus, the Xelibri phone line was born.
Outdoing Nokia With Xelibri
The initial idea had hatched in the mind of Rudi Lamprecht, then an executive board member of Siemens and one of the most important figures in the company’s phone division. He wanted to take over the phone market with a bang, and his idea was for Siemens to offer something never seen before—something that would catch the attention of trendsetters and, at the same time, allow Siemens to establish a foothold in markets outside Europe.
The man appointed to lead the charge and bring this dream to fruition was George Appling, the head of Siemens’s newly founded Xelibri division.
The idea behind the initial batch of Xelibri phones, which launched in early 2003, was to offer something otherworldly, to bring about “Space on Earth,” the official name of the collection. Even a quick glance would make you realize that, at least design-wise, it delivered upon that promise.
Made up of four phones, the Space on Earth collection focused on design and eye-catching details rather than usability. Even the most tame part of the pack, the Xelibri 1, looked like something from a near-future sci-fi movie.
Other models gave off strong Star Trek vibes—especially the Xelibri 2 and 4 that looked like variations of the iconic Star Trek Communicator. Vibes that ad campaign pitches tried to incorporate.
However, instead of embracing the phones’ futuristic designs, Siemens launched a bizarre ad campaign that attempted to outdo the eccentric PlayStation ads of the time. Just look at the commercial below!
The second collection, titled “Fashion Extravaganza” and “Beauty for Sale,” featured four models as well. It debuted in October 2003, about half a year after the Space on Earth lineup hit the shelves. It, too, was accompanied by an eccentric ad campaign, headed by yet another “early 2000s PlayStation-like” advertisement directed by none other than David Fincher.
This time around, the phones weren’t designed by Siemens’s internal Xelibri division, but by an external design studio called IDEO. Despite using an external design studio, the Fashion Extravaganza collection yet again featured highly unique handsets that, this time, took inspiration from the world of high fashion.
You had the Xelibri 5 and 7, which looked like regular phones of the time that underwent a fashionista treatment. The Xelibri 7 was especially interesting, designed to easily clip onto a belt or a shirt pocket.
The Xelibri 6 tried to be a 2-in-1 device: a phone and a powder compact. It featured two mirrors and a rounded clamshell design with keys encircling the round mirror that sat in the middle of the bottom shell. Lastly, the Xelibri 8 was a proper fashion statement, meant to be carried on the necklace that came with the phone.
The Fashion Extravaganza collection was the end of the Xelibri phone line. Siemens pulled the plug on the lineup in the first half of 2004, with the company’s phone business being sold to Benq just a year later.
A Resplendent Failure
After just two collections and eight models in total, the Xelibri series was no more. The primary reason for pulling the plug was the atrocious sales numbers. The entire series managed to garner only 780,000 sales, which is less than 100,000 sales per model.
While the first Xelibri collection had a solid start in some markets, its high price of admission was one of the reasons behind poor sales. The most affordable option sold for 199 euros, which is equivalent to approximately 321 euros in 2025 money, or around $380. The most expensive model cost 399 euros, or approximately $700 in 2025 money.
George Appling, the man behind Xelibri, prioritized design and extravagant looks over functionality. His vision included “a scenario where people will own many fashion accessory phones and wear the one that matches their mood, the occasion, or their attire,” with Siemens believing that “most people buy the mobile phone that looks the best, and many have a habit of showing it off.”
While parts of those statements were true, Xelibri phones strayed too far into the “fashion phone” territory while neglecting features, build quality, and ease of use. The phones were made of low-quality plastic materials, giving off a feeling of cheap trinkets produced in low-tier Chinese factories.
Xelibri handsets also lagged behind the competition in terms of the features they offered. Despite the expansion of color-screen phones, which was at its peak at the time, the first generation of Xelibri phones came with monochrome displays. The second collection did pack color screens, but lacked the built-in cameras that were all the rage in the early 2000s.
This lack of vision wasn’t limited to the Xelibri line but also applied to Siemens phones as a whole. I remember when a friend got a Siemens S55, the first color-screen phone I laid my eyes on. It also had a camera, but not built into the device; instead, it was in the form of an add-on that you’d connect to the phone. It looked cool as a unique hardware gimmick, but it was ridiculous from a usability perspective.
Usability was also an aspect where Xelibri grossly underdelivered. Their UI was slow and laggy, with most models being anything but straightforward to use, especially those that didn’t include keypads. The video below shows just how hard and, dare I say, exasperating it was to dial a phone number on an Xelibri 8. Imagine typing a message on that thing!
Unlike Siemens, Nokia understood that an eye-catching design didn’t have to hamper usability. Some of the company’s most extravagant designs, such as the Nokia 3200, 7600, and N-Gage, remained relatively straightforward to use and included a breadth of features tech geeks expected in a mobile phone of the time.
The Motorola Razr V3, another design icon that came out just a few months after the Xelibri brand went under, was gorgeous to look at but also included a regular keypad and a solid collection of features you’d expect from a feature phone in 2004.
The two Xelibri collections put all their eggs in the design basket, which wasn’t enough to warrant success in the crowded phone market of the early aughts. Aside from eye-catching design, a phone from that era also had to offer other qualities to succeed, qualities that Xelibri phones lacked.
While it ended as a massive failure, the Xelibri series remains one of the most unique phone lines ever, still turning the heads of retro phone enthusiasts more than two decades after its debut. Not the legacy Siemens had hoped for, but a legacy nonetheless.
