(iTers News) – Mobile World Congress (MWC) 2012 ended up presenting opportunities as well as challenges. During the 4-day annual trade show ended on March 1, major players in the smartphone and tablet PC manufacturing ecosystem got mixed feelings about how the industry will be playing out in the years to come.
For smartphones and tablet PC makers, the road ahead will likely be rocky, because they will have to tackle a tough marketing and technological challenge to distinguish their product lines from the crowds of cheap and razor-thin margin ‘me too’ clones., which come out of nowhere in China and India
The proliferation of low-cost and look-alike Android smartphone clones will threaten to deteriorate their profitability in the years to come, as it i a matter of time before the still expensive luxury smartphones will turn into marginally profitable commodities
The gradual debut of low-cost Windows Phone OS and Android smartphones will likely further accelerate the commodification of smartphones, too
While smartphone makers have more to lose than gain in the prevalence of low-cost smartphones, however, silicon content providers and applications, or app developers will likely benefit the most.
Especially, semiconductor chip makers are pinning their hopes on booming demand for a wide range of semiconductor chips from applications processors to MEMS and sensors to microcontrollers to memory chip solutions.
On the other hands, mobile service carriers are in a mixed position, as they are scrambling to find a profitable enough business model to justify their rush to invest in a next generation of LTE and 4G LTE advanced network.
Service carriers across the world are now in a desperate need for big enough cashes to finance their capital investment projects to build up LTE and 4G LTE advanced networks to accommodate explosions in data traffic. As data-rich smartphones are rapidly penetrating, existing 3G mobile networks are getting increasingly drained to the limit.
Even if their heavy capital investment risks souring their profitability, however, they are ironically pinning lots of hopes on the prohibitively expensive LTE network, as it will lay the foundation for them to explore an array of new and profitable business models.
“4, or 5 years ago when smartphones came out of nowhere, all of players just focused on hardware –processors, screen sizes, and in-built cameras. Then, discussion moved to OS and apps. For example, they started to discuss about which OS is better and what apps are cool. In the last two years, discussion again started to shift to mobile services like FaceBooks and locations services,“ said Peter Chou CEO with HTC Corp. at his keynote speech for MWC 2012.
Make the most use of LTE network
Added he, “I feel like today consumers want all of these features. However, they don’t want to spend time on figuring out how to use these features. They just want to easily use whatever they want to use. This is huge challenges for us, because how to have all these elements to work together is very complicated job. This type of integration is huge challenges for us.”
As CEO Chou pointed out, HTC unveiled a new HTC series of smartphones that feature amazing camera and authentic sound experiences, which the mobile phone maker thinks sets its HTC One series apart from other rival phones.
Running on Android 4.0 version Ice Cream Sandwich, newly released HTC One series of smartphones are a prime example of how to stick out from competition, coming up with its own indigenous user experience technology trademarked as HTC Sense.
Differentiate in sounds and sights
The HTC Sense is a new breed of user experience that combines a new suite of camera and image technology trademarked as HTC ImageSense with an authentic sound feature and software algorithm to give digital camera-like picture quality and Hi-Fi-like sound quality.
Matching a true digital camera in performance and picture quality, for example, HTC One smartphone series allows users to take a snapshoot and capture images in a fraction of 0.7 seconds with a new superfast 0.2 second auto-focus function.
It also enables users to take a clear shot in a low-light environment, as its newly built-in and customized image sensor chip and f/2.0 lens combine to capture 40% more light the f/2.4 lenses available on other high-end smartphones.
More importantly, its integrated Dropbox app allows users to edit, save, and share their photos and videos in a big storage space of 25 gigabytes.
Nokia Corp. also took the wrap off a new line of smartphones that sports what used to be only available on a professional digital camera and a home theater system.
Called as Pure View 808, the mid-range smartphone of a 450 EURO price tag came equipped with a large and high resolution 41 mega-pixel CMOS image sensor as well as a 5.1-channel Dolby Digital Plus technology.
Combined with Carl Zeiss optics and a new pixel oversampling technology, the 41 mega-pixel camera allows users to take a shot and capture a sharp enough image to match that of a professional digital camera.
In addition, the 5.1 channel Dolby Digital Plus technology gives a CD-like personal surround sound experience.
Location- based service is another outstanding feature that Nokia is trying to implement on its new lines of smartphones to differentiate their smartphone product line-up from other rivals’
“We are daily faced with three questions; what, who and where ? The search engines answer the first, social networks provide the second, and our goal is to respond to the ‘where’ question, said Nokia CEO Stephen Elop at a MWC2012 keynote session.
To deliver on his goal, Nokia has already lined up three location-based services –Nokia Drive, Nokia Map, and Nokia Transport. For example, Nokia Transport service has listed up bus and metro timetables in over 500 cities in 40 countries across the world.
Drawing a clear line from the past where the company has mainly focused on hardware innovations like a crystal-clear AMOLED screen, Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd. unveiled a 10.1 tablet PC that features a handwriting- recognition technology.
The Android 4.0 OS-based 10.1 Galaxy Note series tablet PC is a follow-up model of its 5.3-inch galaxy Note smartphone, which was an overwhelming hit with a wide view screen and a handwriting-enabled capability.
Both of the Galaxy Note series are armed with a stylus pen as well as handwriting-recognition technology called as a S-pen technology, allowing users not only to draw pictures and images, but also scribble down letters on the screen.
3D and handwriting-recognition catch eyes
According to Samsung, the Note series is a new product category that emphasizes consumer experiences, not form factors.
The world’s No.2 mobile phone maker also showcased a projector smartphone called as Galaxy Beam, which allows users to project movies and pictures stored in the device onto a flat wall, or ceiling to watch them in a 40-inch wide screen TV-like viewing experience.
Samsung’s backyard archrival LG Electronics Inc. has lined up a couple of smartphone series that features glass-free 3D screen technology, demonstrating that 3D display technology is what really sets itself apart from competition.
Unlike an earlier version of LG Optimus 3D series that comes with no 3D display, LG’s new line of Optimus 3D Max smartphone comes complete with a 3D display and a 2D/3D converter software, allowing users to watch 2D moving images in a 3 dimension format without wearing a 3D glass.
Powered by Texas Instruments’ 1.2GHz dual core CPU, the Optimus 3D Max has a 4.3-inch 3D LCD screen, of which resolution is 800 by 480.
The differentiation efforts by smartphone makers are reminiscent of what they have done in the mobile phone markets in mid-2000s, signaling that global smartphone markets will get soon flooded with a deluge of low-margin commodity-like smartphones.
That should be welcome news for CPU and GPU processor chip makers and silicon IP core content providers, as it will be redrawing the competitive landscape of global smartphone market into low-cost basic smartphones and feature-rich upscale premium smartphones.
Driving the segmentation of the smartphone market is Intel Corp., who lost ground to rival ARM Holdings of the U.K. in mobile phone and smartphone processor chip market, but is struggling to regain market share in the fast-growing market segment.
Big shake-ups
At a MWC 2012 press conference, Paul Otellini, CEO with Intel Corp. detailed its technology roadmap to address the two different market segmentations. To cater to graphics-and 3D data-rich high-end markets, Intel plans to ship a new generation of Atom processor-based SOC chip –Z2580 -in the first half of 2013.
A successor to current Atom processor-based SOC chip of 32nm geometry- Z2460, which codenamed as Medfield – the Z2580 will be manufactured with a 22nm design rule to double the clock speed, but consume less power.
Intel also unveiled its plan to ship a new line of Atom processor-based low-cost SOC chip platform –Z2000- in the early 2013 to target before-subsidy below US$100 smartphone markets, which industry sources predict could reach up to 500 million units by 2015.
The Z2000 will be based on a 1.0 GHz Atom processor, offering graphics and video game playbacks and access to the Web.
“The low-cost smartphones would greatly benefit consumers as well as app developers,“ said CEO Paul Otellini.
Added he,“Our rate of improvements in smartphone silicon technology is double Moore’s Law.”
To fight back Intel’s aggressive foray into application processor chip markets for smartphones and tablet PCs, top-tier chip makers, which champion ARM architecture, are also integrating their own software and hardware innovations into ARM processor cores to make their respective applications SOC chips a lot power-thriftier
A growing number of smartphone users are downloading and playing back tons of graphics-rich and power-hungry 3D and full HD games, movies and apps on their devices, how to save power consumption is a key to winning in the competition for applications processor chip markets.