By 2013, the first $50 smartphone will appear in emerging countries,\u00a0according\u00a0to IT research and advisory company, Gartner.<\/p>\n
New entrants in the smartphone market, including Chinese brands and white-box handset makers, have served to drive down the cost curve.<\/p>\n
Gartner says that differing use cases between consumers in the emerging market and those in developed countries have enabled the reduction or elimination of certain costly features while advances in chipset integration have enabled semiconductor companies to address the growing low-cost smartphone market.<\/p>\n
“The combination of competitive pricing pressure, open-channel market growth and feature elimination\/integration will very soon result in the $50 smartphone,”said Mark Hung, research director at Gartner.<\/p>\n
He says that semiconductor vendors that serve the mobile handset market must have a product strategy to address the low-cost smartphone platform, with $50 as a target in 2013.<\/p>\n
“Global, brand-name smartphone vendors must re-examine their product lineups to determine how their low-end offerings are differentiated from the competitive products offered by low-cost vendors. Otherwise, brand-name smartphone vendors may want to cede this market to the white-box vendors and focus on high-end devices.”<\/p>\n
Gartner also\u00a0predicts that more than 50% of mobile apps deployed by 2016 will be hybrid.<\/p>\n
“Mobility has always been a separate topic for IT professionals, but it is now influencing mainstream strategies and tactics in the wider areas of technology enablement and enterprise architectures,” said Ken Dulaney, vice president and distinguished analyst at Gartner.<\/p>\n
“Increasingly, organisations are finding that they need to support multiple platforms, especially as the [bring your own device] BYOD trend gains momentum.”<\/p>\n
To address the need for mobile applications, organisations are looking to leverage applications across multiple platforms. The advantages of the hybrid architecture, which combines the portability of HTML5 web apps with a native container that facilitates access to native device features, will appeal to many organisations.<\/p>\n
The need for context awareness in mobile applications has increased with the capabilities of mobile devices, causing developers to consider both hybrid and native architectures, Gartner said.<\/p>\n
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