Dubai: Mobile phone manufactures are scanning the horizon for the next big thing as profit margins from smartphones are getting smaller.
Both Sony and Samsung are both going beyond smartphones and launching new accessories to add value to products.
Sony will soon be launching its DSC-QX10 and DSC-QX100 standalone camera lenses for handsets while Samsung launched its Galaxy Gear smartwatch on Sunday in addition to the Galaxy Note 3.
“Everybody knows that global smartphone sales have declined, except in the Gulf. Everybody is trying to come out with new gadgets to increase sales and so vendors can take higher margins,” Hayssam Yassine, head of telecommunications Group at Samsung Gulf Electronics, told Gulf News on the sidelines of a press conference.
He said that margins from phones are getting smaller due to tough competition and Chinese vendors entering the segment.
This is “survival for the long term” and is a must for manufacturers, he said.
“Smartwatches are a new category. The objective we are trying to deliver is freedom and wearable connectivity. It adds value [to products] and we see a great potential for these kinds of devices,” he said.
“We don’t expect everybody to buy the watch. There are certain people who are tech savvy. For example, if the phone is in your pocket or in a bag and it suddenly rings, instead of searching for the phone users can answer it with the watch or send a SMS. It is especially useful when you are driving as the microphones are very powerful,” Yassine said.
The Gear is currently compatible with Note 3 and Samsung Tablet 10.1.
The 1.63-inch device is powered by a 800MHZ processor and has a super Amoled display with 320 x 320 resolution with 4GB storage and 512RAM.
Users can also make hands-free calls and use S Voice.
The software updates for Samsung Note 2, Galaxy S3 and S4 are expected to be rolled out within a month.
“The Gear breaks completely new ground for Samsung. As a product, it seems a little unpolished. The mix of features (which includes a camera) would seem to indicate that Samsung has yet to pinpoint the precise use for a smartwatch. As a result it tries to do too much for its small battery to sustain its charge for any reasonable length of time,” Daniel Gleeson, mobile analyst at IHS Electronics and Media, told Gulf News.
He said that Samsung must be lauded, however, for its efforts to ensure there are a good number of third party apps immediately available for the Gear. The smartwatch is initially compatible with 70 apps.
“The Gear is little more than a commercial prototype at the moment. The next Galaxy Gear needs better battery life, a lower price, and a more focused product design to appeal to mainstream consumers,” he said.
As smartphones get bigger, Gleeson said there is definitely the scope to experiment with lighter, smaller form factors to negate the need to take out your phone every 10 minutes to check if you have any Facebook notifications. The wrist is a natural starting point for this as people are already very familiar with watches. People “will be naturally more sceptical about head-mounted interfaces such as Google Glass, until such displays could be incorporated into a more traditional glasses form factor,” he said.
Gleeson said that the distinctive feature of the Note range continues to be the S-Pen stylus and the functionality Samsung bake into the Note 3 for it. Samsung’s deft use of the stylus and multi-windows view make the product a very attractive productivity tool.
“While the size of the Note means it is not a product that would appeal to many people, the Note range has managed to carve out a substantial niche for itself; selling over 38 million units since the launch of the original Galaxy Note in 2011,” he said.
The Note 3 comes with 1.9GHz Exynos Octa processor for 3G and a 2.3GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon 800 quad-core for 4G LTE, with 13MP rear camera and 2MP front facing camera. It will also be the first phone to have 3GB RAM.
The Note 3 will be available on September 25 for Dh2,799 for the 3G version and Dh2,999 for the 4G version, while the smartwatch will go on sale three days later for Dh1,199.
