News & Analysis
7 things to look for at Mobile World Congress
Junko Yoshida and Dylan McGrath
2/1/2011 12:17 PM EST
The $150 smartphone
The hottest smartphone debate of 2011 is no longer on iPhones. It's all about $150 smartphones. "That's the new sweet spot for smartphones," said Gideon Wertheizer, CEO of Ceva. "Pre-requisite for that is a single-chip solution integrated with a baseband and an application processor, rather than two pricey components."
The founder and principal analyst of The Linley Group, Linley Gwennap, agrees. "I expect the biggest growth in smartphones this year to come from low-cost models in emerging economies. To build a smartphone with a BOM cost of $50 to $100, you need a single chip that integrates both application processor and cellular baseband." He said, "At MWC, watch for companies like Broadcom, Marvell, Qualcomm, and ST-Ericsson to promote their low-cost integrated smartphone solutions."
Will Strauss, principal analyst at Forward Concepts Inc., however, remains skeptical of $150 smartphones. He expects them to be shown off, but said he is not sure how quickly they will actually be available. The concept is being pushed by mobile operators, who want to sell more phones, Strauss said.
Strauss added that the introduction of the $150 smartphone is likely to blur the line between a smartphone and a feature phone. The handsets will have touchscreen displays, Strauss said, but not the range of functionality of a top-of-the-line smartphone.
"You can call them a smartphone, but they won't be quite as smart as an iPhone," Strauss said.
Strauss said that he suspects that Indian handset maker Micromax Mobile will be among the first to offer $150 smartphones.
Entry level smartphones are expected to get even less expensive. According to a new report from Juniper Research, pricing of low cost smartphones will come down from $150 to $80 in 2015 due to increased competition and the availability of lower cost chip sets. Juniper predicts that shipments of entry level smartphones will exceed 185 million in 2015.
Strauss added that the introduction of the $150 smartphone is likely to blur the line between a smartphone and a feature phone. The handsets will have touchscreen displays, Strauss said, but not the range of functionality of a top-of-the-line smartphone.
"You can call them a smarthphone, but they won't be quite as smart as an iPhone," Strauss said.
Strauss said that he suspects that Indian handset maker Micromax Mobile will be among the first to offer $150 smartphones.
Entry level smartphones are expected to get even less expensive. According to a new report from Juniper Research, pricing of low cost smartphones will come down from $150 to $80 in 2015 due to increased competition and the availability of lower cost chip sets. Juniper predicts that shipments of entry level smartphones will exceed 185 million in 2015.
The hottest smartphone debate of 2011 is no longer on iPhones. It's all about $150 smartphones. "That's the new sweet spot for smartphones," said Gideon Wertheizer, CEO of Ceva. "Pre-requisite for that is a single-chip solution integrated with a baseband and an application processor, rather than two pricey components."The founder and principal analyst of The Linley Group, Linley Gwennap, agrees. "I expect the biggest growth in smartphones this year to come from low-cost models in emerging economies. To build a smartphone with a BOM cost of $50 to $100, you need a single chip that integrates both application processor and cellular baseband." He said, "At MWC, watch for companies like Broadcom, Marvell, Qualcomm, and ST-Ericsson to promote their low-cost integrated smartphone solutions."
Will Strauss, principal analyst at Forward Concepts Inc., however, remains skeptical of $150 smartphones. He expects them to be shown off, but said he is not sure how quickly they will actually be available. The concept is being pushed by mobile operators, who want to sell more phones, Strauss said.
Strauss added that the introduction of the $150 smartphone is likely to blur the line between a smartphone and a feature phone. The handsets will have touchscreen displays, Strauss said, but not the range of functionality of a top-of-the-line smartphone.
"You can call them a smartphone, but they won't be quite as smart as an iPhone," Strauss said.
Strauss said that he suspects that Indian handset maker Micromax Mobile will be among the first to offer $150 smartphones.
Entry level smartphones are expected to get even less expensive. According to a new report from Juniper Research, pricing of low cost smartphones will come down from $150 to $80 in 2015 due to increased competition and the availability of lower cost chip sets. Juniper predicts that shipments of entry level smartphones will exceed 185 million in 2015.
Strauss added that the introduction of the $150 smartphone is likely to blur the line between a smartphone and a feature phone. The handsets will have touchscreen displays, Strauss said, but not the range of functionality of a top-of-the-line smartphone.
"You can call them a smarthphone, but they won't be quite as smart as an iPhone," Strauss said.
Strauss said that he suspects that Indian handset maker Micromax Mobile will be among the first to offer $150 smartphones.
Entry level smartphones are expected to get even less expensive. According to a new report from Juniper Research, pricing of low cost smartphones will come down from $150 to $80 in 2015 due to increased competition and the availability of lower cost chip sets. Juniper predicts that shipments of entry level smartphones will exceed 185 million in 2015.
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Luis Sanchez
2/1/2011 7:28 PM EST
In regards the $150 smartphone... I'm eager to see that... I bet it'll come with Android included. Nice :)
And about the western skew... Interesting to read this. But is also kind of obvious when we think that the high end products are the ones that allow a margin for publicity and marketing strategies.
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lifewingmate
2/1/2011 10:01 PM EST
#1 Phenomenal but is that globally? Is this before or after provider subsidies?
#2 What about the security risks (I know much of this is already implemented in Europe) in the US -identity theft, etc. What about issues with emissions
#3 and 4 Looks like we need further definition of LTE for either commercial or residential use.
#4 Curious about the evolution of the tablet device going forward since laptops are now getting lighter and have a physical keyboard and converts into a table such as Dell's Inspiron Due(3.39 lbs). Or possibly Dell's Adamo XPS competing with the Macbook Air to compete with ulta mobility.
#5 I'm glad that China's role in the congress, their strengths, and the challenges they will face were highlighted. How do they compare to the Korean and Japanese in this market? I'm supposing that Chinese brands are not known yet in the US, but their phone components and rebranding of phones for the western market are strong. Glad you also recognized mobile TV and am ever interested in how that will expand as people are replacing traditional cable/satellite with hulu and other internet streaming.
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chanj
2/2/2011 2:23 AM EST
The quality of a device is somewhat driven by the cost of materials. A $150 tablet will never be able to perform as well as a $600 tablet unless there is a huge engineering flaw in the $600 tablet. I wonder what kind of features are going to provide by a $150 smartphone? In business point of view, I don't have a doubt there is a market for a low cost smartphone since there may be someone who don't need a lot of features. Question is how big is the market? I can't wait to see the number of major players in both smartphones' and tablets' market in 2012. Who's going to effectively capture majority of the market?
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eewiz
2/2/2011 3:01 AM EST
@chanj Note that the BOM of a 600$ tablet is less than 200$ normally and IMO with second tier suppliers it can go to ~120$.
Checkout a recently released 150$ smartphone from huawei. It has almost all the features of top end smartphone. Ofcourse its not the fastest or biggest but still can do most of the stuff.
http://www.huawei.com/news/view.do?id=11266&cid=42
http://www.gsmarena.com/huawei_u8150_ideos-3513.php
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goafrit
2/2/2011 8:58 PM EST
Is this CDMA or GSM? This looks very cool
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yalanand
2/2/2011 11:17 PM EST
Will NFC in mobile will kill visa/credit cards ? And how safe is this NFC ?
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elctrnx_lyf
2/5/2011 2:57 PM EST
150$ smart phone is defintely on the cards. with a open source Android and a huge quantity, it is quiet easy to make a smart phone for this money. What I'm looking out from this event is more updates on LTE. I wish this will retransform the ocmplete mobile braodband user experience.
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docdivakar
2/7/2011 3:49 PM EST
@Junko, @Dylan: thanks for the pre-expose on the mobile world congress. Looks like most of the comments have been on #1 thru 6, so I am happy to pick on #7, Western Bias.
While it is true that a dominant part of the mobile users are in the developing economies, much of the system-level design and development takes place in the western economies (though this is gradually changing with Huawei's emergence). So it is realistic to see western businesses present at the MWC. The danger of this is a poor understanding / assumption of use cases and behavioural patterns of consumers in the developing economies. I have written elsewhere in EE Times that not all of the consumers in the developing economies will need the 'smarts' of a smart phone / tablet for a long time to come. What they need is a dependable and reliable communicator that serves their need for the lowest cost. I think this is best accomplished by startups / enterprises from the developing economies.
Dr. MP Divakar
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