“Science and Technology Innovation Board Daily”, April 26 (Reporter Huang Xinyi) IDC's latest report shows that in the first quarter of 2024, the Chinese smartphone market shipped about 69.26 million units, an increase of 6.5% over the previous year. Among them, Honor ranked first with a 17.1% market share in China. However, since its return at the end of August last year, Huawei's market share reached 17.0% in the first quarter of this year, with a year-on-year increase of more than 100%.

“The global terminal market is picking up in a general direction. In 2024, global smartphone market shipments will be around 1.2 billion. It is expected that there will be some growth in the next few years, but the growth rate is limited.” Wang Jiping, vice president of IDC China, said in an interview with the “Science and Technology Innovation Board Daily” reporter, “In this context, more new technology leadership is needed. Especially this year, AI phones have become an important factor for all manufacturers hoping to stimulate market growth and development.”

Judging from the ranking of the domestic mobile phone market in the first quarter, competition among manufacturers was very intense. Wang Jiping believes that mobile phone manufacturers supported by AI, such as Honor, will perform better at the growth rate. Meanwhile, after Huawei re-entered the Chinese market, it disrupted the original overall pattern.

▍ The terminal computing power of mobile phones will continue to increase

According to the data, Honor's market share in China in the first quarter was 17.1%, up 13.2% year on year. Meanwhile, Huawei's market share in the first quarter of this year was 17.0%, a year-on-year increase of more than 100%. Among them, the Huawei Nova 12 series accounts for one-third of Huawei's shipments throughout the quarter, but supply issues are still a key factor limiting Huawei's shipments even further.

OPPO continues to rank in the top three with 15.7% market share, Apple's market share is 15.6%, and vivo ranks fifth with 14.6%.

Looking at the overall share of Android and iOS, the Android market grew 9.3% year over year. Apple shipments, on the other hand, fell 6.6% year over year.

“Similar to the global trend, Apple has also experienced a slight decline. This shows that there has also been a certain shift in the domestic market. From continuing to pursue mobile phone iteration a few years ago, it is now attracted by folding screens and AI phones in the high-end market.” Wang Jiping said.

As the ChatGPT craze has taken the world by storm, artificial intelligence has also detonated the mobile terminal market. Whether it is chip manufacturers, large model makers, cloud service providers, and application providers, they have joined this ecological transformation. Referring to the development trend of AI phones, Wang Jiping said that the integration of the cloud has become a fundamental consensus. “Although the end side model is smaller, the computing power is more timely and stable, and can customize a personalized model for each person while ensuring security.”

According to IDC's definition, the new generation of AI phones is characterized by NPU computing power greater than 30 TOPS.

Wang Jiping said that PCs and mobile phones will continue to increase computing power on the terminal side. “It is possible to reach 60 TOPS or 100 TOPS in the future. The models will also get larger accordingly, the time for consumers to accept them will become shorter and the experience will get better and better.”

Another consensus in the industry is that in the future terminals will be distributed management, and computing power can be shared between terminals. “For example, in the home scenario, the PC may be the computing power center, and the mobile phone can quickly obtain computing power from the PC.” Wang Jiping said.

▍ Improved memory configuration and cooling technology for AI models

Since the AI model generates a very large amount of computation during the inference process, if it lands on an end-side mobile device, it will consume a lot of energy. As a result, how to balance performance and energy consumption has become one of the bottlenecks for large models on the mobile phone side.

Wang Jiping believes that this means that the large model on the end side will increase the requirements for the overall configuration of the phone.

“The end side model will drive a significant improvement in memory configuration. Currently, most flagship phones have 12GB of RAM, and we recommend that it reach 16GB. Cooling technology also needs to be changed accordingly. For example, liquid cooling technology is more applied to the end side, and new heat dissipation materials may become an important development direction in the future.”

2023 is considered to be the first year of AI terminals, and all major Android manufacturers are betting on AI. Wang Jiping believes that this year's focus is on exploring how AI terminals can develop. As all aspects of the end-side strategy become more clear, many scenarios will be implemented quickly, and consumers will discover where the real ROI (return on investment) lies. This will further drive the growth of mid-range and high-end phones and promote a further increase in the average unit price. After that, AI terminals will move from scenario-based to interactive, to the stage of sublimation and popularization, and to popularization in 2028. This is the path of AI terminal development predicted by IDC.”

However, the current share of AI phones is still low, and it has not yet become the main factor driving market growth. IDC predicts that global shipments of next-generation AI phones are expected to reach 170 million units in 2024, accounting for 15% of total smartphone shipments. Wang Jiping judged that in the long run, as AI phones move from high-end to mainstream, their driving force for consumers to switch devices will become greater. “More and more people are buying AI smartphones, which is also speeding up the switching process, which will drive changes in the market to a certain extent.” Wang Jiping said.