Phone makers will seek to entice new buyers with better cameras and bigger screens at the world’s biggest mobile fair starting tomorrow in Spain after a year of flat smartphone sales.
However, with no major innovations awaited in handsets, analysts expect the four-day Mobile World Congress in Barcelona to focus on new uses for artificial intelligence (AI) and the looming deployment of super-fast 5G wireless networks.
Smartphone giants Huawei Technologies Co (華為), LG Electronics Co and HTC Corp (宏達電) are not expected to launch a new flagship device at the annual show, so Samsung Electronics Co has the opportunity to grab the spotlight when it unveils its S9 and S9+ phones today, on the eve of the fair.
The teasers suggest major changes to the camera, which reportedly allow for “super slow-motion” videos and a new camera lens that improves low-light photos: features some of its rivals already offer.
The camera “seems to have become a major source of differentiation for the latest generation of smartphones,” CCS Insight mobile phone analyst Ben Wood said.
Samsung remained the world’s biggest seller of smartphones last year with a 21.6 percent market share, up from 21.1 percent the previous year, research firm IDC Corp said.
Apple Inc, which as usual will not be at the show, was the second biggest vendor at 14.7 percent.
Overall global smartphone sales for last year were virtually flat — down 0.1 percent at 1.47 billion units — as phone makers struggled to come up with innovations that encourage customers to upgrade their devices.
“The sea of sameness continues to erode the impact that new models have on the market,” Wood said.
IHS Markit senior director of mobile and telecoms Ian Fogg said that, in addition to better cameras, phone makers are to focus on introducing bigger screens in mid-market devices, not just flagship ones, to try to boost their sales.
“They are all really struggling to find good differentiation points to drive that upgrade cycle. They are not just competing with each other, they are competing with the phone that consumers already own that they may consider good enough,” Fogg said.
The sector is hoping the introduction of the blazing-fast 5G mobile internet service — which is is about 1,000 times faster than 4G — will trigger a wave of growth in equipment sales and mobile services.
The first deployment of 5G wireless networks, which are quick enough to download a full-length film in less than a second, are expected in key markets such as the US, Japan and South Korea at the end of the year.
“We are in a phase of acceleration … as much for 5G as for artificial intelligence,” said Jacques Moulin, the director-general of IDATE, a French think tank on the digital economy.
The tech industry in December last year agreed on most universal standards for 5G, clearing the way for future wireless connections to support functions such as driverless cars and traffic systems.
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