In 2017, competition in the smartphone industry was particularly fierce. Both LeTV, which left the market due to the supply chain crisis, and ZUK, which voluntarily closed due to the company’s strategic adjustments, have reshaped the competitive landscape, and the remaining mobile phone manufacturers are seeking product differences. Innovative means. So, what are the new selling points of mobile phones in 2018? The editor made the following outlook based on current technology news.

　　 1. Diversified mobile phone forms-folding screen, curved full screen

The emergence of the full screen has made all mobile phone manufacturers "climactic". The phones released after September this year, ranging from flagship phones of 10,000 yuan to phones that are enough for 1,000 yuan, have swarmed on the full screen, no matter it is really comprehensive. The screen is still almost a full screen, and manufacturers can say that the concept is fully implemented.

The popularization of full screens has further enhanced the homogeneity of smartphones. The personalization and differentiation displayed by folding phones are the elements that mobile phone manufacturers are most eager for in this fierce competition, and the maturity of technology will inevitably promote this. The landing of a concept. ZTE has previously released a dual-screen folding phone, but its shape is not as folded by a whole screen as we imagined, but we cannot underestimate the fancy application capabilities of mobile phone manufacturers for technological innovation. According to rumors, Samsung will exhibit the flexible folding screen mobile phone Samsung Galaxy X at CES2018 in January next year, and will sell 100,000 units in Korea. With a major manufacturer such as Samsung taking the lead, the popularization of folding phones will obviously speed up.

　　ZTE AXONM

According to the "2017-2022 China Full Screen Mobile Phone Industry Market Survey Research and Development Prospect Analysis Report" released by China Industry Information Research Network, the data predicts that in 2017, the total global sales of mobile phones will be about 1.5 billion, and the full screen will be in the smart phone market. The penetration rate is 5%, and it will soar to 40% in 2018, and then gradually rise to 93% in 2022. Judging from the models released by mainstream brands, the popularity of full-screen displays may exceed the aforementioned expectations.

　　 Regardless of next year's full-screen popularity, there will always be manufacturers that can come up with differentiated products in the homogeneous competition, and folding mobile phones are one of the most likely solutions in 2018.

　　2, elementary artificial intelligence blessing

　　 The term artificial intelligence is as popular as VR in 2016. As we all know, the functions of VR and various optimizations must be mentioned incidentally at the 2016 mobile phone conference. Many manufacturers have launched VR boxes for their own models to catch up with the popularity of VR. By 2017, VR seemed to have been forgotten by mobile phone manufacturers, and artificial intelligence perfectly replaced the time that VR took at press conferences and the layout of media reports.

　　 At this stage, the widely reported artificial intelligence mobile phone is a mobile phone equipped with Huawei's Kirin 970 processor. Through its unique NPU unit, it can achieve certain functions in specific usage scenarios, such as photo scene recognition and translation acceleration. No matter how powerful the AI processing capabilities advertised by manufacturers, it can be seen from the functions currently implemented that the current level of intelligence possessed by mobile phones is still very rudimentary, and there is not much change in how smart phones are used. For ordinary consumers, such an elementary level of intelligence may not be called artificial intelligence, and this level of intelligence is even hard to perceive on the consumer side. But we still have to keep in mind one thing, don’t underestimate the ability of mobile phone manufacturers to make gimmicks. Just like Luo Yonghao said at the press conference, other manufacturers are using it. If I don’t use it, I will suffer a lot. So next year I will use artificial intelligence as a selling point. There will be no shortage of mobile phones.

　　 The combination of artificial intelligence and mobile phones is a very natural thing. In addition to Huawei, this year's mobile phone chips are all about artificial intelligence. Among them, the Snapdragon 845 used by many mobile phone manufacturers also has AI capabilities, but it is not quite the same as Huawei's Kirin 970 processor. The 845 does not have a built-in independent neural unit, but is integrated. On the Snapdragon 845, the Kryo architecture CPU supports FP32 and INT8, and AdrenoGPU supports FP32 and FP16, which provide the basis for neural network operations. Qualcomm's own DSP is the protagonist of AI computing. It supports HVX and INT8, which can achieve more efficient computing power, reaching 3 times that of Snapdragon 835, and can complete image processing, vision processing, deep learning processing, neural network processing, etc. Task. Those functions that rely on big data to analyze neural network learning, such as speech recognition, object recognition, etc., will have better performance on this generation of processors.

　　 No matter how smart the mobile phone AI is next year, the editor believes that as long as the popularity of artificial intelligence does not decrease, the concept of artificial intelligence mobile phones will always exist. Next year, mobile phone manufacturers will also make specific optimizations based on different mobile phone usage scenarios to promote what they call artificial intelligence, but in any case, it is worth paying for it to help mobile phones improve their functional performance in various usage scenarios.

　　3, fingerprints and facial recognition under the screen become standard

　　 Fingerprint under the screen has always been one of the most wanted functions of consumers, and it is also the ultimate state of consumers' imagination of the realization of fingerprint recognition, and this vision will soon be realized. Not long ago, fingerprint recognition manufacturer Synaptics (Synaptics International) released the world's first under-screen fingerprint recognition sensor-ClearIDFS9500, and said that vivo will use ClearIDFS9500 series modules for the first time.

The application of under-screen fingerprint recognition will inevitably spread rapidly in smart phones with full screens. In addition to under-screen fingerprint recognition, facial recognition as an alternative fingerprint recognition technology should also be popular in 2018, but it may not be the case. The main selling point of mobile phone manufacturers. With more convenient under-screen fingerprint recognition, facial recognition is not so important. In 2018, the mobile phone market may be more based on under-screen fingerprint recognition as a selling point, and facial recognition exists as an auxiliary recognition. This judgment is based on the fact that under-screen fingerprint recognition is more convenient and natural to realize identity verification in various usage scenarios than facial recognition.

However, some industry players have indicated that whether it is 3D sensing or under-screen fingerprint recognition solutions, the cost at this stage is relatively high. For global mobile phone brand manufacturers that intend to save costs, it will inevitably generate a lot of pressure, and it is difficult to introduce both at the same time. A solution with similar functions. At present, the market trend has obviously moved closer to 3D sensing solutions. Both international and mainland mobile phone brands prefer to use 3D sensing solutions. If the market trend remains unchanged, under-screen fingerprint recognition solutions in the future The market space will be limited. In the editor's opinion, regardless of the popularity of under-screen fingerprint recognition, facial recognition will be the standard configuration of mobile phones in 2018, because many manufacturers currently use cameras and algorithms to achieve non-3D facial recognition.

　　 In addition to the above-mentioned technology-driven mobile phone trends, there are also trends formed by manufacturers following the trend.

In 2018, wireless charging may be one of them. The application of wireless charging on mobile phones can be said to be very mature technically. At this stage, it is already standard on Samsung’s flagship mobile phones. This year, all new iPhones have also adopted it. But in general, domestic mobile phones are still not actively adopting wireless charging. I don’t know how popular Apple will take the lead next year.

Apple and Samsung have adopted a glass back cover this year. The newly released domestic Mi Note3, Mi 6, Huawei mate10, etc. are all made of glass, although none of them have wireless charging, while the domestically popular oppoR11S and vivoX20 are still made of metal. , Whether the glass material can become the mainstream next year or not depends on the popularity of wireless charging in the market.