China’s Growing Mobile Phone Industry: Outlook, stakes and opportunities.
Today, Connectikpeople.co has captured the International Data Corporation
(IDC)’s China Quarterly Mobile Phone Tracker (2013 Q3), which underscores that
China’s smartphone shipments are expected to reach 420 million units in 2014,
with a year-on-year growth of 19.8%. This represents, a relative growth high
growth
compared with the 63.6% growth rate in 2013.
According to this report, to stand out in such a competitive market,
innovation in technology is an absolutely must. IDC believes that China's
mobile phone market will show the following technical innovation trends in
2014:
1. ‘’The vote of mobile phone chip vendors for five or multi-mode 4G chip
platforms will boost innovation in the mobile industry. 4G chips may not only
drive business growth of mobile phone vendors and telecom operators, but also
promote innovation in related phone components and mobile services; they may
even change the way people use mobile phones. 4G technologies have two
standards: FDD-LTE and TD-LTE. IDC forecasts that the 4G mobile phone market in
China is likely to first focus on the deployment of triple-mode 4G chips at its
early stage. Upon technological maturity of chip vendors as well as improvement
of network deployment, there will then be more chip vendors to release five or
multi-mode 4G chip platforms. In short, integrated five or multi-mode 4G chip
platforms will gradually become the dominant configuration of mobile devices.
2. 2K screen resolution with Low-temperature Poly-silicon (LTPS) technology
will be adopted by more high-end smartphones. More end users have begun to use
large-screen smartphones to watch high-definition videos, and high-definition
screen is the basis for good mobile video experience, so the vendors’ demand
for high-definition screen is witnessing a rapid growth. IDC estimates that
more mobile phone vendors will adopt emerging 2K LTPS screen in 2014, with not
only higher resolution, higher color saturation and lower cost, but also less
power consumption.
3. The application of Optical Image Stabilization (OIS) technology in
high-end smartphones will be put under the spotlight. Smartphone cameras have
evolved from 2 million pixels to 16 million or even higher pixels, which has
been very difficult to have a breakthrough over, while the users’ demand for
image stabilizer remains strong. IDC estimates that cameras adopting the OIS
technology will be given priority in the smartphone development in 2014. The
OIS relies on special lens or structures of CCD sensors to minimize image
instability caused by users’ movements. Compared with the electronic image
stabilization, the optical image stabilization enjoys better effects.
4. Collective collaboration among telecom operators, device vendors and
financial system is required in order for NFC technology to gain popularity.
While there had been some NFC-enabled mobile phones in 2013, few voices were
heard in NFC technology market due to lack of promotion by large-scale
enterprises and extensive cooperation among up-and-downstream players.
Additionally, the limited applications of NFC technology failed to meet the
increasing demands from the users. IDC believes the premises of application and
popularization of NFC technology in smartphones are the reasonable allocation
of multi-party interests in the supply chain, and the initiation and lead of
industry-pioneering companies.
5. Bending technology holds promise for the future of mobile phones. The
application of bending technology in mobile phones is mainly manifested in:
bendable screens and batteries. Currently some breakthroughs have been made in
these two bending technologies, alongside with many challenges as well. For
example, with screens being bent, it is difficult to maintain high resolution
and color purity quality. At the same time, mass production with lower cost
will be the key, which poses a challenge and also presents an opportunity for
the bending technology. IDC does not believe that the bendable phones will
score large quantity shipments in China’s market in 2014, but is optimistic
about the future prospects of this technology.
6. The application of dual smartphone operating systems will facilitate
different experiences for users. Dual operating systems have already been
applied on some phones, but the real dual smartphone operating systems are
rarely seen. IDC expects that in 2014, competition in the smartphone operating
system will be even more intense. Vendors, out of need for innovation and
business expansion, will try to develop two operating systems on a single
smartphone. The application of dual operating systems will provide users with
different and fresh experiences. Meanwhile, multi-operating systems will also
provide more space for the development of cross-platform personal cloud
service.’’
