Skip to main content

Global Growth Projection for Affordable Smartphones

The lower-cost smartphone market segment -- defined as a unit price of less than $150 -- is a strong growth opportunity for the mobile phone industry, according to the latest market study by NPD DisplaySearch.

Low-cost smartphone shipments are forecast to double every year from 2010 to 2016, increasing from 4.5 to 311.0 million.

"Most mobile phone subscribers around the world can't afford to spend more than $200 for a smartphone, on top of their service plans," said Shawn Lee, Research Director at NPD DisplaySearch.

Low-cost smartphone manufacturers create these new products quickly without much investment, which has allowed them to extend their telecom subscriber base to emerging regions.

Most of the demand (60 percent) is from the Asia Pacific region, where a large majority of component suppliers and manufacturing factories are located -- providing both time and cost savings.

These solutions have a shorter lifetime than high-end smartphones and are manufactured via ready-made solutions from application processor manufacturers. The product mix is complex, requiring continuous development cycles for new products.

To keep prices low, the key requirements for components are low cost and readily available supply. Android is the most popular operating system for low-cost smartphone designs because it is considered open source.

Brands and manufactures tend to use mature, low-price components, rather than developing new ones. For the display, this means standard a-Si TFT LCD rather than high-resolution LTPS.

The penetration rate of Android-based low-cost smartphones is increasing, with NPD DisplaySearch forecasting their share to grow from 2 percent of total smartphone shipments in 2012 to 29 percent in 2016.

NPD DisplaySearch says that local brands and white box vendors in China have taken an aggressive stance in capturing market share.

Popular posts from this blog

Human Resource Transformation Enabled by IT

Many senior executives are taking a proactive approach to digital business transformation in order to achieve their strategic goals. Delivering revenue growth and profitability is now imperative for every function, including Human Resources (HR). The top 3 priority HR technologies this year are skills management, learning experience platforms, and internal talent marketplaces, according to the latest worldwide market study by Gartner. "With a tumultuous global economy, HR technology leaders face a balancing act in 2023," said Sam Grinter, director at Gartner . "Leaders must anticipate greater levels of accountability and demand for measurable outcomes to justify new technology investments." HR Transformation Market Development Forty-four percent of HR leaders report driving better business outcomes is their number one strategic priority for HR technology transformation over the next three years. Growth in headcount and skills (26 percent) and cost optimization (17 p

Virtual Reality Market Set to Reach $100 Billion

Virtual Reality (VR) market growth is now finally coming to fruition. Thanks to current actions and market momentum, VR is approaching what can be considered critical mass. And, not a moment too soon. This growth momentum comes from new hardware and content releases, accelerating enterprise value recognition, and a significant metaverse wild card that could potentially lift adoption and usage. According to the latest worldwide market study by ABI Research, over 85 million VR Head Mounted Displays (HMDs) will be shipped in 2027 across consumer and enterprise segments, creating a $100 billion VR market that includes hardware, software, and services. Virtual Reality Market Development "Expectations have been high in VR for years, and even decades, without notable growth to show. That growth is finally coming over the next five years," said Eric Abbruzzese, research director at ABI Research . The barrier to entry is lower than ever, all while content performance and user experien

How Savvy Pioneers Lead the Future of Work

Hybrid and fully remote work are inevitable in the Global Networked Economy where high-performance talent demands flexibility from employers. To enable these progressive work models, organizations are investing in a wide range of technologies to support more agile types of employment.  According to the latest worldwide market study by International Data Corporation (IDC), leading organizations will spend nearly $1 billion on the Future of Work (FoW) in 2023 -- that's an increase of 18.8 percent over 2022. Future of Work Market Development "Work models continue to evolve, but 37 percent of decision-makers in a recent global survey note that Remote and Hybrid work models will be an embedded part of accepted work practices, supported by a continued shift to the cloud, increasingly instrumented and interconnected physical workplaces, and intelligent digital workspaces," said Holly Muscolino, group vice president at IDC . According to the IDC assessment, organizations must mak