Mid- to low-end smartphones will play a key role in the future

Chen Lingjun, an industry analyst at ITRI's IEK, said that mid- to low-end phones and emerging markets are playing a more important role than ever before, while mainland Chinese brands such as Huawei are showing their ambition to enter the global market.

ITRI's IEK said that looking at the brands that made it into the global top 10 in smartphone market share in 2013, there were 4 mainland Chinese brands: Huawei, Lenovo, ZTE and Yulong. Huawei even rose to No. 3 in the global rankings, while Japanese major Sony climbed to No. 7, and Nokia and HTC took No. 9 and No. 10.

IEK pointed out that global mobile phone shipments already reached 1.84 billion units in 2013, smartphone shipments reached 1.018 billion units, and smartphone penetration reached 55%. It is estimated that smartphone penetration will reach 84% in 2017.

Observing the flagship phones of various major manufacturers, Chen Lingjun pointed out that Sony presented its flagship Xperia Z2 with a 20.7-megapixel camera and 4K high-definition video recording, and emphasized the One Sony concept, integrating the technologies of its various business units through the phone.

Looking at Samsung's performance this year, Chen Lingjun believes that the hardware specifications of Samsung's flagship Galaxy S5 have been comprehensively upgraded, and it is also equipped with fingerprint recognition and the world's first heart rate sensor, while its waterproof rating is also the highest in the industry at present.

It is worth noting that Huawei presented the 7-inch X1 tablet phone at this MWC, strongly supporting its own HiSilicon chips, and showed its determination to build a world brand. In addition, like Samsung and Sony this time, Huawei also launched a smart band. The market believes that Huawei's TalkBand B1 is innovative, and Chen Lingjun believes it has considerable development potential.

Chen Lingjun said that mid- to low-end smartphones also played a key role at MWC this year, for example, HTC Desire 816, Lenovo S660, Huawei Ascend G6, Nokia X, among others. Among them, the Nokia X series is Nokia's first Android phone, with the goal of connecting the next billion people to the internet.