BARCELONA: This year, artificial intelligence is a hot topic among smartphone manufacturers.They believe their phone’s characteristics will create a new “supercycle” for the industry, which is why they are so confident in them.The greatest trade event of the year for the mobile technology sector, Mobile World Congress, is starting at the same time as all of this.
It’s expected that major device manufacturers, like Qualcomm and MediaTek, together with chip firms like Samsung, Huawei, Honor, and Oppo, will speak a big game about how AI is changing our personal gadgets.
When was the last supercycle for a smartphone?
Smartphone manufacturers have been dreaming of an AI-driven “supercycle” in their sector following a rough few years in which device sales sharply declined.
That occurred at a time when the popularity of smartphones was only beginning to spread due to the release of popular apps like Candy Crush Saga, Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp, Uber, Snapchat, and Twitter.
“The expansion occurred not solely from the introduction of the iPhone by Apple or the Android operating system by Google,” Francisco Jeronimo, vice president of data and analytics at IDC, said to CNBC.
on a phone interview with CNBC, Jeronimo stated, “What really made it successful, that supercycle, was the fact that people could get the internet in their pocket.”
Other developments at the period included the introduction of 3G, which allowed for video conversations over the internet, and the move to 4G, which offered higher internet connections.
According to Jeronimo, “we saw very popular operating systems that brought so many services and so much content through the phone, not just the browser.”
According to Ben Wood, principal analyst at CCS Insight, the last “seismic disruption” to hit the sector was the release of the iPhone.Wood told CNBC, “Since then, nothing has been as disruptive.”
“Era of AI phones”
Leading smartphone manufacturers are placing bets that artificial intelligence will soon cause a supercycle.
With the release of the Galaxy S24 Ultra earlier this year, Samsung believes there’s a good possibility AI could usher in a new era that will revitalize the sector.The president of Samsung’s mobile experience business in the United Kingdom, James Kitto, told CNBC that the mobile industry is entering a new phase of hypergrowth powered by artificial intelligence.
“Everyone anticipates that this will be the case. From Samsung’s European headquarters in Chertsey, England, Kitto told CNBC, “We’re seeing some really, really high demand.”
The Galaxy S24 included live phone translation for those speaking different languages, as well as the ability to circle an object with your camera and view Google Search results for it.
“An entirely new era, the AI phone era, is dawning right now,” Kitto stated.
According to Brian Rakowski, vice president of product management for Google’s Pixel phone division, artificial intelligence will likely spark a resurgence in interest in mobile technology.
Since introducing the Tensor family of smartphone CPUs, Google has been focusing on incorporating AI into its products.
As Rakowski stated to CNBC, “we already saw that AI was going to be the differentiator and the next wave of innovation across all technology, but especially mobile.” “It is extremely important to every aspect of our computing platforms and lives.”