Google revealed this week that one of the reasons why its Ara "modular phone" Project had been postponed, from a scheduled August 2015 launch to an undetermined date in 2016, was because it "failed the drop test."

In other words, the hardware and component integration is not yet robust enough for everyday use. The magnets holding the phone and components together fall apart during drop tests. If you drop an Ara phone on the floor today, it may break or shatter too easily. The Ara phone will need re-designing, hence the delay.

To followers of modular phones over the past decade, the recent Ara delay will NOT come as a surprise. Building swappable components into modular phones has been a perennial challenge for the mobile industry since the 1990s. The technical complexity is high. Modu, Phonebloks and several other companies worldwide have struggled to crack the modular phone problem for years.

More analysis of Project Ara -- and forecasts for modular phone sales worldwide -- can be viewed by clients here.