Skip to main content

Ultra-Economy Smartphones will Drive New Innovation

The common application thread that define smartphones is that they are no longer just for talking and texting, but can satisfy many different needs -- how a device fulfills those expectations generally decides the relative position within the market. Price is often a key deciding factor.

According to the latest market study by Juniper Research, a new Ultra-Low cost generation of smartphones are emerging, capturing large volumes of first-time mobile internet users within the emerging markets.

Juniper forecasts almost 200 million in shipments by 2018 -- that's compared to nearly 10 million forecast in 2014.

On a global scale, this means that the Ultra-Premium end of the smartphone market is set to diminish proportionally by volume over time, not due to a drop in sales but a faster level of growth at other price points.

Juniper's latest assessment argues that this new generation of devices will permanently change the market -- splitting the global market in two -- with the developed high margin low volume markets on one side and low margin high volume markets on the other.

The Ultra-Premium smartphone market is currently dominated by Apple and Samsung with contenders such as HTC struggling to find a consistent foothold.

However, due to fierce competition in the middle part of the smartphone market, this could be about to change as these players will begin to face competition from emerging markets as players such as Xiaomi and Oppo search for higher profit margins.


An Open Market for Differentiated Perspectives

These new players are utilizing different tactics; Xiaomi are taking a holistic approach to the consumer and planning to offer additional services to the user, thus subsidizing their high performance devices.

Juniper says that they believe this extra competition in the Ultra-Premium end of the market is a boon to the consumer -- the more competition a market has the faster the rate of innovation.

Even the established players themselves may benefit as a faster rate of innovation will shake off the perception that this segment of the market is stagnating in terms of truly innovative technologies.

Juniper also notes that as the market matures, opportunities for new paradigms will begin to emerge. For example, modular designed devices such as the Phone Bloks concept or devices that make an ethical stance such as the Fair Phone.

These new paradigms could allow the consumer a choice in smartphone that may align with their personality more than a device from the current generation of vendors.

Popular posts from this blog

Demand for Quantum Computing as a Service

The enterprise demand for quantum computing is still in its early stages, growing slowly. As the technology becomes more usable, we may see demand evolve beyond scientific applications. The global quantum computing market is forecast to grow from $1.1 billion in 2022 to $7.6 billion in 2027, according to the latest worldwide market study by International Data Corporation (IDC). That's a five-year compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 48.1 percent. The forecast includes base Quantum Computing as a Service, as well as enabling and adjacent Quantum Computing as a Service. However, this updated forecast is considerably lower than IDC's previous quantum computing forecast, which was published in 2021, due to lower demand globally. Quantum Computing Market Development In the interim, customer spend for quantum computing has been negatively impacted by several factors, including: slower than expected advances in quantum hardware development, which have delayed potential return on inve

AI Semiconductor Revenue will Reach $119.4B

The Chief Information Officer (CIO) and/or the Chief Technology Officer (CTO) will guide Generative AI initiatives within the large enterprise C-Suite. They may already have the technical expertise and experience to understand the capabilities and limitations of Gen AI. They also have the authority and budget to make the necessary investments in infrastructure and talent to support Gen AI initiatives. Enterprise AI infrastructure is proven to be expensive to build, operate and maintain. That's why public cloud service provider solutions are often used for new AI use cases. AI Semiconductor Market Development Semiconductors designed to execute Artificial Intelligence (AI) workloads will represent a $53.4 billion revenue opportunity for the global semiconductor industry in 2023, an increase of 20.9 percent from 2022, according to the latest worldwide market study by Gartner. "The developments in generative AI and the increasing use of a wide range AI-based applications in data c

Global Public Cloud Spending to Reach $1.35T

Most digital transformation is enabled by cloud solutions. Worldwide spending on public cloud services is forecast to reach $1.35 trillion in 2027, according to the latest worldwide market study by International Data Corporation (IDC). Although annual spending growth is expected to slow slightly over the 2023-2027 forecast period, the market is forecast to achieve a five-year compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 19.9 percent. "Cloud now dominates tech spending across infrastructure, platforms, and applications," said Eileen Smith, vice president at IDC . Public Cloud Services Market Development IDC believes that most organizations have adopted the public cloud as a cost-effective platform for hosting enterprise applications, and for developing and deploying customer-facing solutions. Looking forward, the cloud computing model remains well positioned to serve customer needs for innovation in application development and deployment -- including as data, artificial intelligence