Smartphone Develops toward What Direction?

When asked the question of “Whether smartphone replace traditional feature phone in the near future”, most people will nod and say “of course”. Indeed, smartphone and Tablet PC now undoubtedly is the “darling” of electronic industry. Especially during the period of global economic crisis, almost smartphone and Tablet PC bolster the development of semiconductor growth.

Worldwide sales of mobile phones to end users reached almost 428 million units in the third quarter of 2012, a 3.1 percent decline from the third quarter of 2011, according to Gartner, Inc. But smartphone sales accounted for 39.6 percent of total mobile phone sales, as smartphone sales increased 46.9 percent from the third quarter of 2011.  Moreover, based on an healthy market report about portable devices released by Qualcomm, by the end of 2016, worldwide smartphone will achieve shipment of 5 billion units, which seems reflects the certain trend of smartphone replacing feature, mainly due to the sharp decline of smartphone price.

Aiming at the development trend of smartphone, then can all smartphone manufacturers get great achievement in this field? Looking around the whole handset market, there is no deny that Apple and Samsung dominates the smartphone market with almost 90% profits. The remaining market shares are being fight for by thousands of manufacturers, including brand manufacturer and Shanzhai phone makers. With the price continuous dropping, as well as Apple likely entering into middle-end handset market, how to win the small and fierce market has trapped all manufacturers. According to various reports, smartphone market shows the trend of technology innovation deciding the future, as well as leaving large brand smartphone manufacturers and eliminating the small and Shanzhai phone makers.

Technology innovation seems to mean a lot of cost for small phone makers; then in addition to technology innovation, is there any other method? As we all know, LED lighting industry, despite the broad development prospect, is suffering overcapacity, resulting in the sharp decline of LED product price; and with the gradual implementation of government support and the continuous increase of support efforts, LED lighting industry comes into an era of after-sales service competition. In fact, the same goes for smartphone market. In particularly, the launch of iPhone 5 represents the small progress era for smartphone, after-sales service and quality competition will play an increasingly important role in the smartphone market.