The mobile phone market has always been focused on innovation-driven rapid change and ongoing efforts to reduce costs.
It’s still that way today. The landscape continues to evolve, with many factors converging to redefine what it takes for OEMs to be competitive. The acceleration of 4G network coverage, greater smartphone availability and affordability, and changing channel dynamics are having the biggest impact. To continue their growth, OEMs need to develop global device solutions that enable access to mature and developing markets, support connectivity to all network generations and frequency bands, and provide compelling features in a price-competitive package.
Acceleration of 4G network coverage: The number of 4G LTE connections across 151 countries doubled between 2014 and 2015, to more than 1 billion. As a result, OEMs must deal with ever-greater network complexity that will continue to grow with the proliferation of the Internet of Things.
Greater smartphone availability and affordability: OEMs will ship an estimated 1.7 billion 4G smartphones in 2020, much of which will be comprised of midrange phones for consumers in developing markets. A strong base across the midrange market therefore will be key to OEMs’ growth.
Consolidate the number of SKUs across the product portfolio to reduce total cost of ownership and drive market upside by meeting customer demands globally with fewer devices.
Respond to shifting customer sales models with “future-ready,” carrier-agnostic devices that have high-quality features, longer lives and higher residual value.
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