The new smartphone war is about to start

Apple, Samsung, and Google are all leveraging AI to breathe new life into their mobile devices. This will help open a new era for the smartphone field.

Users experience smartphones in Shanghai. Photo: China Daily.

For years, giants such as Apple and Samsung have been competing fiercely in the smartphone market to provide consumers with the most advanced devices and technologies. However, these factors seem to have gradually reached their limit when there have not been too many disruptive changes in recent times.

With billions of people using smartphones across the globe, companies have to work harder to convince users to buy new products.

Currently, the smartphone market is lagging behind. According to statistics from data company Canalys, about 1.14 billion mobile phones will be shipped in 2023, down 4% from 2022.

Meanwhile, data from analytics service company Assurant shows that the average time a user replaces or upgrades their device is about 3.5 years. Companies in the smartphone sector have been expecting consumers to upgrade every 1-2 years, but it’s hard to blame consumers because they have no reason to do so.

According to Business Insider, AI could be the key to ending the era of small changes on smartphones. In early June, Apple CEO Tim Cook kicked off the first day of the WWDC 2024 event by unveiling Apple Intelligence, a new set of AI features that aim to improve the company’s entire hardware roster and will be released later this year.

The company says Apple Intelligence on iPhones will help users “enhance their writing capabilities” on everything from emails, messages, documents to audio summaries, and enhance the virtual assistant Siri. Apple also reached an agreement with OpenAI, the company behind ChatGPT, to integrate the chatbot deeper into its operating system.

Apple Intelligence features were unveiled at WWDC 2024. Photo: Apple.

Meanwhile, Google and Samsung are equally busy with new smartphones.

In May, Google showcased its AI assistant called Project Astra at its I/O conference. Powered by the multimodal Gemini model, the new tool is designed to provide real-time chat and support capabilities on Pixel phones. The new Pixel phone line will be launched on August 13.

Another big player in the smartphone field, Samsung, plans to update Galaxy AI with outstanding communication capabilities. The South Korean tech giant expects to regain the crown in the smartphone market thanks to AI. Data from market research firm IDC shows that Samsung lost this position last year when Apple won the largest market share.

The smartphone market has started to “get old” after years of improvement but has not attracted many users. In 2024, industry giants will exploit and build an image of AI, considering this technology as a springboard to open a new era for the smartphone field.