CIFA, Feb. 29 (Reporter Tang Zhixiao) The Mobile World Congress MWC 2024 (Mobile World Congress) in Barcelona, Spain, has become a stage for major companies and manufacturers to showcase their technological strength.

The theme of the conference was “Future First” (Future First). Traditional communication equipment vendors such as Huawei and ZTE showed 5G-A commercial usage scenarios; after satellite communication technology was launched in smart flagship smart phones, HAPS (High-Altitude Platform Station) technology, which has emerged in recent years, also displayed actual implementation scenarios; upstream terminal chip manufacturers and downstream terminal manufacturers focused on the generative AI revolution, showcasing the latest achievements of generative AI on the chip side.

It is worth noting that more than 300 Chinese companies participated in the MWC 2024 exhibition, and many Chinese mobile phone manufacturers also unveiled their latest flagship products at the exhibition, showing their determination to revive the European market.

Adding generative AI technology, manufacturers fully embrace AI terminals

As upstream chip manufacturers for communication terminals, MediaTek and Qualcomm showcased the progress of AIGC technology at this exhibition.

MediaTek demonstrated the optimized Meta Llama 2 generative AI application for the first time. Using the hardware AI acceleration technology of the Tianji 9300 and Tianji 8300 APU, the terminal generates abstracts for users based on articles or long content, and SDXL Turbo instantly generates images from text and expands endside generative AI skills.

The reporter learned that currently the Tianji 9300 already supports Baichun AI Baichun Baichun, Vivo Blue Heart big model BlueLM, and OPPO AndesGPT big model.

Xu Jingquan, senior vice president of MediaTek and general manager of the wireless communications division, said, “The MediaTek Tianji 9300 and Tianji 8300 all incorporate high-performance generative AI processors. The potential for generative AI applications is only just beginning to emerge, and we look forward to working closely with industry partners to turn innovative visions into reality.”

The reporter also learned that in order to facilitate the resource center created by developers, Qualcomm technology provides developers with a fully optimized AI model library. According to information, Qualcomm AI Hub brings a new model library of more than 75 pre-optimized AI models to support deployment on terminals equipped with Snapdragon and Qualcomm platforms.

Currently, the third-generation Snapdragon 8 can run generative AI models with up to 10 billion parameters and run large language models at a speed of 20 tokens/s, including the recently released Xiaomi 14 Ultra flagship, Honor Magic6 Pro, and OPPO Find X7 Ultra, all equipped with this chip platform.

Qualcomm President and CEO Anmon pointed out in an interview that hybrid AI is the future of generative AI. Terminal-side intelligence works collaboratively with the cloud to improve personalization, privacy, reliability, and efficiency. He believes that generative AI cases will be implemented in smartphones, next-generation PCs, XR terminals, automobiles, and robots.

In addition to chip manufacturers, mobile phone brands are also showcasing the latest achievements in the AIGC field. In catching up with this wave of generative AI technology, Honor, OPPO, and ZTE are more active manufacturers.

Among them, Honor unveiled an AI-enabled full-scenario strategy at MWC 2024, and brought a series of smart devices equipped with large AI models, including the Magic6 series, folding screen Magic v2 series products, and AIPC Honor MagicBook Pro 16, which had previously been launched domestically.

In an interview with reporters, Honor CEO Zhao Ming said, “Honor's AI strategy is to make end-side AI and platform-level AI, and use AI to restructure the operating system to provide a more personalized and intelligent user experience. At the same time, Honor will also choose to cooperate with AI service providers to provide diverse AI applications.”

OPPO not only unveiled a new generation of assistive reality smart glasses OPPO Air Glass 3 concept products at MWC 2024, but also announced that in the second quarter of this year, it will push a series of generative AI functions, including AI cancellation functions, to the global OPPO Reno 11 series and OPPO Find N3 products. In the future, generative AI functions will cover more global OPPO products, including the next generation of Reno phones.

ZTE terminals also launched AI-driven full-scene smart ecosystem 3.0, and released a variety of innovative products and technologies, including the world's first 5G+ AI naked eye 3D tablet Nubia Pad 3D II, the world's first 5G+ AI naked eye 3D tablet, 5G FWA with a new AI concept, the first small folding screen phone, the Nubia Flip, and a variety of new featured products focusing on video, music, and games.

Like many domestic mobile phone manufacturers, Voice has also embarked on the path of full-scene AI and launched TECNO AI, which supports AI assistants, AIGC creation, real-time translation, image rendering, and camera optimization. In addition, Voice also launched AI PCs, Megabook T16 Pro 2024 Ultra notebook and AI-enhanced four-legged robot, the robot dog TECNO Dynamic 1.

Among them, the notebook product has a built-in Tecno PC Manager application, and users can use the NPU of the Intel Core Ultra 7 processor to handle AI tasks assigned through this application. Officials say the device can render an AI image with higher resolution and higher quality within 6 seconds based on the original image.

According to McKinsey's research, generative AI technology can enable more than 60 use cases to achieve an overall economic benefit increase of 2.6 trillion to 4.4 trillion US dollars per year, roughly equivalent to the UK's GDP in 2021.

Chinese brands revive the European market

Every year, MWC is an important window for Chinese brands to show their product strength to the European and global markets.

At MWC 2024, more than 300 Chinese companies participated in the exhibition, including communication equipment manufacturers, smartphone brands, semiconductor companies, software developers, etc., including Xiaomi, Honor, OPPO, Voice, and ZTE terminals.

According to Counterpoint Research data, before 2019, the overall market share of Chinese brands in Europe peaked at nearly 40%. Among them, brands such as Huawei, Xiaomi, and OPPO entered the top five in the European market in the fourth quarter of 2019.

Among domestic brands, Xiaomi's market share is 22%, and its share in the Eastern European market reached 35%. Honor became the only brand in the top 5 European market to achieve positive growth in the third quarter of 2023. The growth rate was 8%, but considering that its market share was only 3%, there is still plenty of room for growth.

At the MWC this time, Xiaomi officially unveiled the “Full Ecosystem of People and Cars” and Surge OS to the global market, and debuted various flagship phones such as the Xiaomi 14 and Xiaomi 14 Ultra overseas. Among them, the Xiaomi SU7 was also unveiled for the first time in Europe.

Lu Weibing, partner of Xiaomi and group president, said that in the European market, Xiaomi Surge OS will cover the first batch of 30 million devices this year, with a future target of 100 million coverage.

Previously, Honor adopted a steady strategy in the European market, focusing on high-end brand positioning and competing with Apple and Samsung. Honor became the only brand to achieve positive growth in the top 5 shipments in the European market in the third quarter of 2023. The growth rate was 8%, but considering that its market share was only 3%, there is still plenty of room for growth.

Zhao Ming said that in the future, Honor will not pursue short-term sales growth in the European market, but will focus on building brand reputation and consumer loyalty, and positioning high-end brands to compete with competitors such as Apple and Samsung.

At the beginning of 2024, OPPO and Nokia reached a global patent cross-licensing agreement including essential patents for the 5G standard and other cellular communication technology aspects. At this exhibition, it was announced that a three-year strategic cooperation with European operator Telefónica will fulfill its promise to the European market, and new products will be launched simultaneously in the European market in the future.

Although there is no voice in the top 5 European markets, Transom's Tecno and Infinix brands grew rapidly in the Eastern European market in the third quarter of 2023, growing 192% and 518% respectively, with the main market being Russia.

Some analysts told reporters that the European market is quite polarized, and the consumption capacity and structure of the wealthy regions of Western Europe and the Eastern European market are quite different. Audio is actually taking on the demand for some of Xiaomi's low-end entry-level products, so it's growing rapidly.

In the fourth quarter of 2023, smartphone shipments in Europe (excluding Russia) were 37.8 million units, down 3% year-on-year, the lowest quarterly shipment volume since 2011.

Canalys research analyst Brandon Gurney believes that as devices purchased during the pandemic are about to enter a renewal cycle, the European smartphone market will resume single-digit growth in 2024, and manufacturers will pay more attention to the AI-centered end-side user experience, and place more emphasis on personalization, ecosystem interactivity, productivity, and entertainment to seize this opportunity.