MobileChannels.eu - Smartphones. SmartDevices. SmartAccessories.

by Olivier Lafontaine
Strategy and Product Management Director
Technicolor Connected Home

As the 5G era moves through its early stages of deployment, the network service provider (NSP) community is exploring how the different manifestations of this technology (millimeter wave, mid-band, and low-band 5G) can best be harnessed to serve consumers while optimizing the revenues. In so doing, carriers will have to evaluate the pros and cons of dedicating spectrum to burgeoning demand for mobile services while looking for ways to enhance broadband access to connected homes.

Establishing the right balance is likely going to be different for every single NSP. The directions operators take with 5G will depend on the regions in which they operate, the nature of their subscriber base, the disposition of local infrastructures, and the competitive posture of other players offering mobile and terrestrial broadband services in their markets.

5G Achieving Critical Mass of Industry and Consumer Acceptance

Once the winners of the 5G auction are announced, NSPs can expect spectrum assets to nearly double in size. These new frequency resources will enable NSPs to enhance existing services and deliver new value propositions. Compared to what has been achieved so far with the technologies previously available -- such as 4G LTE -- 5G comes with substantial capacity improvements, elevating the experience of consumers who have 5G-capable devices. 

Some mobile device manufacturers -- especially those in the Android market -- immediately jumped in over the course of 2019 in anticipation of demand for 5G services. Others, notably Apple, waited until the infrastructure build-out took on a clearer shape. By the end of 2020, however, it became clear that 5G successfully established itself as the new standard of service, a fact illustrated by the roll out of the iPhone 12, a 5G device. 

During the first day of Qualcomm's Snapdragon Tech Summit Digital, Qualcomm introduced their latest premium technology, the Snapdragon™ 888 5G Mobile Platform.

Qualcomm Technologies’ innovation in the premium tier, coupled with the evolution of 5G, is accelerating and aiming to redefine immersive consumer experiences.

Qualcomm says diverse growth segments (the requirements and complexity to offer apps in Always On, Always Connected PCs, XR devices, Edge/Cloud AI products,  5G fixed wireless broadband, and others) depend on the innovation that comes from breakthroughs in the premium tier. For example, Gartner's Market Databook (as of Sept. 2020) says 5G wireless infrastructure worldwide spending will grow 95% in 2020 to about $8 billion.

Snapdragon 888, with the 3rd gen Qualcomm Snapdragon™ X60 5G Modem-RF System, enables global compatibility by offering mmWave and sub-6 across all major bands worldwide, as well as support for 5G carrier aggregation, global multi-SIM, stand alone, non-stand alone, and Dynamic Spectrum Sharing.

The new 6th generation Qualcomm® AI Engine, with the completely re-engineered Qualcomm® Hexagon™ processor, takes a pivotal leap forward in AI compared to the previous generation to improve performance, power efficiency— at 26 Tera Operations Per Second (TOPS). 

The platform additionally features the 2nd generation Qualcomm® Sensing Hub, which incorporates lower-power always-on AI processing for intuitive, intelligent features.

While Snapdragon Elite Gaming™ has delivered dozens of mobile-first technologies to smartphones (including Updateable GPU Drivers, Desktop Forward Rendering, and frame rates achieving up to 144 frames per second), the 3rd generation of Snapdragon Elite Gaming featured in Snapdragon 888 delivers Qualcomm Technologies’ most significant upgrade in Qualcomm Adreno™ GPU performance.

Snapdragon 888 will triple down on the future of computational photography and transform smartphones into professional quality cameras. With the faster gigapixel speed Qualcomm Spectra™ ISP, users can capture photos and videos at 2.7 gigapixels per second or roughly 120 photos at 12MP resolution—up to 35% faster than the previous generation. 

OEMs providing their support for Snapdragon 888 included ASUS, Black Shark, Lenovo, LG, MEIZU, Motorola, Nubia, realme, OnePlus, OPPO, Sharp, vivo, Xiaomi, and ZTE.  

Go Qualcomm Snapdragon 

Xiaomi moved past Apple into the No. 3 worldwide supplier position as smartphone sales to end-users globally totalled 366 million units in Q3 2020 (down 5.7% from Q3 2019).

According to a new Gartner report, Xiaomi grew 34.9% in Q3 2020, securing 12.1% market share while overall global mobile phone sales to end users totalled 401 million units, a decline of 8.7% year-over-year. 

This year, after two consecutive quarters of 20% decline, quarterly smartphone sales have started to show signs of recovery. Despite that growth, smartphone sales remain weaker compared to the same time in 2019-- even with vendors introducing multiple 5G smartphones and governments relaxing shelter-in-place instructions in some geographies. 

“Consumers are limiting their discretionary spend even as some lockdown conditions have started to improve,” says Anshul Gupta, senior research director at Gartner. “Global smartphone sales experienced moderate growth from the second quarter of 2020 to the third quarter. This was due to pent-up demand from previous quarters.” 

Economic uncertainties and continued fear of the next wave of the pandemic continue to put pressure on nonessential spending through the end of 2020. The delay in 5G network upgrades has also limited the opportunity for smartphone vendors.

Among the top five smartphone manufacturers, Samsung held the No. 1 position with 22% market share (See Table 1). Xiaomi moved ahead of Apple into the No. 3 position for the first time ever with sales of 44.4 million units compared to Apple’s sales of 40.5 million units in the third quarter of 2020. 

“Early signs of recovery can be seen in a few markets, including parts of mature Asia/Pacific and Latin America. Near normal conditions in China improved smartphone production to fill in the supply gap in the third quarter which benefited sales to some extent,” adds Gupta. “For the first time this year, smartphone sales to end users in three of the top five markets i.e., India, Indonesia and Brazil increased, growing 9.3%, 8.5% and 3.3%, respectively.” 

Samsung and Xiaomi were the only vendors in the top five to experience growth in Q3 2020. Samsung benefited from its strong positioning amongst Android users and recorded sales of 80.8 million units. Xiaomi grew 34.9% in the third quarter of 2020, securing 12.1% market share and moving past Apple into the No. 3 position. Xiaomi gained from Huawei’s loss including strong performance in China. 

“Apple sold 40.5 million units in the third quarter of 2020, a decline of 0.6% as compared to 2019,” said Annette Zimmermann, research VP Gartner. “The slight decrease was mainly due to Apple’s delayed shipment start of its new 2020 iPhone generation, which in previous years would always start mid/end September. This year, the launch event and shipment start began 4 weeks later than usual.”

Gartner clients can learn more in the report Market Share: PCs, Ultramobiles and Mobile Phones, All Countries, 3Q20 Update.

Go Gartner: Worldwide Smartphone Sales Q3 2020

It's a manufacturer's nightmare: somewhere in the supply chain somebody has added malware to the mobile phones. Units go out to the customer with undiscovered pre-installed malware. And an ambitious security provider uncovers it and issues a global press release exposing the infection.

In this case, it's Transsion and their Tecno W2 smartphones.

Security platform Secure-D, part of Upstream (who sells software to more than 60 mobile operators in over 45 countries) processed more than 1.7 billion mobile transactions in 2019, detecting and blocking over 98,000 malicious apps in 20 countries.

Starting late last year, Secure-D caught and blocked an unusually large number of transactions coming from Transsion Tecno W2 handsets mainly in Ethiopia, Cameroon, Egypt, Ghana, and South Africa-- with some fraudulent mobile transaction activity detected in another 14 countries. To date, a total of 19.2m suspicious transactions – which would have secretly signed users up to paid subscription services without their permission – have been recorded from over 200k Tecno devices. 

Secure-D’s further investigation discovered components of the xHelper/Triada malware preinstalled on 53k Transsion’s Tecno W2 smartphones, a low-cost handset model typically bought by those on a lower income.

Triada is a well-known and extensively investigated malware that acts as a software backdoor and malware downloader. It installs a trojan known as “xHelper” onto compromised devices.

It uses top-level device privileges to execute arbitrary malicious code after receiving instructions from a remote command and control server. It then hides inside permanent system components, making it more resilient against attempts to remove it.

Geoffrey Cleaves, Head of Secure-D at Upstream, comments: “This particular threat takes advantage of those most vulnerable." Referring to the fact this hits Africa's entry-level mobile buyers. Tecno W2 sells for $30-$45.

In 2018 alone, Transsion sold 124 million mobile phones globally. According to IDC figures for 2018, Transsion then ranked 4th in global mobile phone brands and still holds the largest mobile phone market share in Africa.

Transsion, now a billion dollar company running three brands from its HQ in Shenzhen, has been focusing on global market expansion in recent years. Tecno, for example, is a sponsor since 2016 of the English Premier League champions, Manchester City.Their global sales network covers 70+ countries in emerging markets including Nigeria, Tanzania, Kenya, Ethiopia, Egypt, India, Pakistan, Indonesia, Vietnam and Bangladesh.

But instead of scoring a goal, this time it's a yellow card for the Chinese manufacturer.

Go Secure-D Investigation of Transsion Tecno W2