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.
China’s economic planning agency yesterday outlined details of measures aimed at boosting the economy, but refrained from major spending initiatives. The piecemeal nature of the plans announced yesterday appeared to disappoint investors who were hoping for bolder moves, and the Shanghai Composite Index gave up a 10 percent initial gain as markets reopened after a weeklong holiday to end 4.59 percent higher, while Hong Kong’s Hang Seng Index dived 9.41 percent. Chinese National Development and Reform Commission Chairman Zheng Shanjie (鄭珊潔) said the government would frontload 100 billion yuan (US$14.2 billion) in spending from the government’s budget for next year in addition
Advanced Micro Devices Inc (AMD) suffered its biggest stock decline in more than a month after the company unveiled new artificial intelligence (AI) chips, but did not provide hoped-for information on customers or financial performance. The stock slid 4 percent to US$164.18 on Thursday, the biggest single-day drop since Sept. 3. Shares of the company remain up 11 percent this year. AMD has emerged as the biggest contender to Nvidia Corp in the lucrative market of AI processors. The company’s latest chips would exceed some capabilities of its rival, AMD chief executive officer Lisa Su (蘇姿丰) said at an event hosted by
Sales RecORD: Hon Hai’s consolidated sales rose by about 20 percent last quarter, while Largan, another Apple supplier, saw quarterly sales increase by 17 percent IPhone assembler Hon Hai Precision Industry Co (鴻海精密) on Saturday reported its highest-ever quarterly sales for the third quarter on the back of solid global demand for artificial intelligence (AI) servers. Hon Hai, also known as Foxconn Technology Group (富士康科技集團) globally, said it posted NT$1.85 trillion (US$57.93 billion) in consolidated sales in the July-to-September quarter, up 19.46 percent from the previous quarter and up 20.15 percent from a year earlier. The figure beat the previous third-quarter high of NT$1.74 trillion recorded in 2022, company data showed. Due to rising demand for AI, Hon Hai said its cloud and networking division enjoyed strong sales
TECH JUGGERNAUT: TSMC shares have more than doubled since ChatGPT’s launch in late 2022, as demand for cutting-edge artificial intelligence chips remains high Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) yesterday posted a better-than-expected 39 percent rise in quarterly revenue, assuaging concerns that artificial intelligence (AI) hardware spending is beginning to taper off. The main chipmaker for Nvidia Corp and Apple Inc reported third-quarter sales of NT$759.69 billion (US$23.6 billion), compared with the average analyst projection of NT$748 billion. For last month alone, TSMC reported revenue jumped 39.6 percent year-on-year to NT$251.87 billion. Taiwan’s largest company is to disclose its full third-quarter earnings on Thursday next week and update its outlook. Hsinchu-based TSMC produces the cutting-edge chips needed to train AI. The company now makes more
RSS