The mobile phone industry is on the cusp of an important phase of development as enhanced technologies and innovative user interfaces and experiences seek to breathe new life into the market. In this ‘post-smartphone’ era, the market is braced to provide more immersive touch-less experiences, with many new interfaces developing through artificial intelligence and gesture control. In this report, ABI Research categorizes 10 major mobile industry ecosystem companies into market “leaders”, “followers/advocates” and “laggards” based on comparative evaluation and benchmarking of the following 4 main areas to see which companies are best placed to take full advantage of this future paradigm.
1. IP portfolio and patent trends - analysis of patents published and granted from 2013 across 20 identified major mobile sectors.
2. Research and development - investments and ventures tracking of R&D spending over the past 5 years.
3. Acquisitions - analysis of key acquisition since 2015 across a series of defined sectors.
4. Contributions to Standards Bodies and Open Source Communities - comparative abilities to influence and shape transformational change.
Each area was weighted in terms of relative value and importance, so providing a ranking for 10 companies: Amazon, Apple, Facebook, Google, Huawei, Lenovo, LG, Microsoft, Nokia, and Samsung. The target list represents some of the mobile market’s major value creators, which has meant the exclusion of a number of companies, including second-tier handset OEMs and chipset vendors.
