Look but do not touch the flexible future of the smartphone

BARCELONA (Reuters) – Flexible and collapsible formats have laid the foundation for the future of smartphones this week, as manufacturers focus on new forms in order to get the market out of uniformity and revive sales.

Anyone who wanted to touch or slide the Huawei's Mate X, a smartphone that circled the screen in the front and back, was quickly disappointed by the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona.

The initial cheers were quickly followed by a burst when the Chinese firm unveiled the exorbitant price of its 2,299 euros ($ 2,600), although this included a 5G connection.

That's even more than Samsung's Galaxy Fold, which was unveiled last week and will cost $ 1,980 when it goes on sale in some markets in April. He was exposed in Barcelona in a showcase resembling a museum artifact.

While the non-intervention stance says that none of the companies have ready-made devices, 20100 will be remembered as a collapsible year, said Ben Wood, director of research at CCS Insight, adding that the new format was still in its infancy.

"But we are stone age flexible display devices. it's a whole new phase of experimentation after the wave of similarities on smartphones observed during the last decade. "

Samsung has adopted the opposite approach to Huawei by placing its folding screen inside its device, with another smaller screen on the front panel for use when it is closed.

"This was the solution we thought was the best in terms of longevity," said Mark Notton, Samsung's European director for mobile wallet and business strategy.

Smartphone makers have tried to innovate to persuade consumers to switch devices that already meet most of their needs, with the goal of reversing the decline in sales.

And while more and more vendors will soon follow with their own catch on the collapsible displays, 2019 will not be the year they become mainstream, said market analysts, Canalys. They will remain exclusively ultra-luxurious devices, with less than 2 million items sold worldwide this year, added Canalys.

According to research firm Gartner, the mobile phone market shrank by 1.2% in 2018, but it expects 1.6% growth in 2019, driven by replacement cycles in the largest and fastest growing markets. the most saturated, namely China, the United States and Western Europe.

LIFE OF 5G

Analysts say that new generation 5G mobile networks will no longer be widely available until 2023 in the United States and China and in 2026 in Europe, confirm that the vast majority of customers will buy the latest 4G devices such as the new Galaxy S10 from Samsung.

Nevertheless, manufacturers such as LG wanted to show that they could integrate 5G technology with a 4G smartphone, although most did not have information on the launch or prices.

The Chinese manufacturer OnePlus had a 5G device running a video game using a 5G connection, but the visitors were teased with only a preview of the phone screen in a showcase.

"For us, launch means commercial availability, it does not mean PowerPoint," said Carl Pei, co-founder of OnePlus, Reuters.

"We are confident that we will be one of the first with a commercially available smartphone in Europe," he said, adding that this would be done in the first half of 2019.

Xiaomi Corp., which ranked fifth among smart phone shipments in the last quarter according to IDC, revealed pricing information as well as its first 5G device.

"Xiaomi kicked it off with a price of $ 599. This will make many other mobile phone manufacturers cry, "said Mr. Wood, adding that many subscale manufacturers such as Sony, LG and others might have trouble making any kind of spread on the 5G.

Sony did not show a 5G camera, but was relying on its property from a big Hollywood studio to launch a new lineup of Xperia phones in 21: 9-optimized format for watching Netflix movies and content.