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Large-screen Smartphones Not Thought HighlyJan 18, 2013 (SinoCast Daily Business Beat via COMTEX) -- Large-screen smartphones are actually not thought highly by most industry observers. Driven by Galaxy Note, a series of smartphones with large screen by South Korean electronics giant Samsung Electronics, mobile phone makers in the Chinese mainland cast eye on large-screen smartphones in succession. Huawei Technologies Co., Ltd., a leading Chinese telecoms equipment and network solution provider, launched Ascend Mate, a smartphone with a 6.1-inch screen, on the 2013 CES. ZTE Corp. (SZSE: 000063 and SEHK: 0763), a domestic archrival of Huawei, launched Nubia Phablet, apart from Grand S, a smartphone with a 5-inch screen. TCL Communication Technology Holdings Ltd. (SEHK: 2618), a subsidiary of TCL Corp. (SZSE: 000100), and top Chinese PC maker Lenovo Group Ltd. (SEHK: 0992) are said to launch large-screen smartphone products in the near future. An analyst with Digitimes Research said in an interview on January 17 that actually, an explosive growth had not taken into the large-screen smartphone sector and in the past two years, those with a 5-inch screen were popular in the Asian-Pacific region but not the European and the US markets. Their contribution to the aggregate sales was even less than 10 percent. A top executive responsible for product planning at Truly Opto-electronics Ltd., said that in order to provide differential products, mobile phone makers cast eye on smartphones with larger screens in succession. However, mainstream sizes of the screens of bestselling smartphones were still 4.5 and 4.7 inches, each. People in the circle pointed out that the monthly shipment of large-screen smartphones in the domestic market was less than 300,000 units. Actually, a list of institutions though highly of large-screen smartphones in the past. The latest mobile data released by Ericsson show that the monthly data flow of each smartphone will rise 4 times to 1,900 mega in 2018. Barclays Bank forecasted that the market size of phablet, also known as phonelet, would surge up by three times over the coming three years to USD 135 billion and the shipment of those with 5-inch or above screens would rise about nine times to 228 million units in the meantime. Neil Mawston, an analyst with market research firm Strategy Analytics, said that 2013 would be a year for phablet. Lilian Tay, an analyst with market research firm Gartner, suggested that it was better for mobile phone makers not to invest much in the field of phablet no matter whether phablet would take the place of mobile phones and tablet PCs or not as the sector, which was dominated by Samsung Electronics currently, would become a red ocean undoubtedly. (USD 1 = CNY 6.22) Source: www.yicai.com (January 18, 2013) |