Everyone Will Have AI-Enabled Smartphones In Five Years
Qualcomm’s CEO Cristiano Amon has made a sweeping prediction that everyone will have an AI-enabled smartphone within five years.
The San Diego-based company dominates the processor market for mobile devices using the Android operating system.
This week, it unveiled more powerful Snapdragon chips that allow the handsets to operate laptop-level capabilities and AI applications.
The new smartphone processor reportedly has 45 per cent faster speeds and less energy consumption than prior models.
“Over the next five years, we are probably going to have — all of us — an AI smartphone,” Anon told Bloomberg Television. The problem will be waiting for use cases to emerge, he added, something that also happened with the transition to smartphones.
While companies such as Samsung and Motorola have had a head start with pushing out AI-enabled phones, others such as Apple are struggling as its AI software, Apple Intelligence, is yet to roll out into most markets, including Australia where it is expected to arrive only in December.
Anon’s assessment about AI-enabled smartphones is broadly in line with research by independent research firms too. Globally, generative AI (GenAI) smartphone shipments are forecast to grow an unprecedented 363.6 per cent year-over-year in 2024 to 234.2 million units, according to research firm IDC.
By 2025, shipments of GenAI smartphones are expected to grow 73.1 per cent year-over-year.
By 2028, IDC forecasts 912 million GenAI smartphone shipments, resulting in a 2024-2028 compound annual growth rate of 78.4 per cent.
IDC has also noted that global smartphone shipments increased 4 per cent year-over-year to 316.1 million units in the third quarter of 2024.
Companies such as Apple have already confirmed that Apple Intelligence will only be available on the iPhone 15 Pro and onwards, forcing those with phones lower in grade to the iPhone 15 Pro to upgrade them to receive the Apple’s AI features.
“Despite the staggered rollout of Apple Intelligence in markets outside the US, Apple will continue to grow in the upcoming holiday season as it expects many customers to upgrade from the iPhone 13, iPhone 12 and prior models to a new AI-enabled smartphone, future-proofing their purchases for the long term,” said Nabila Popal, research director for Worldwide Client Devices.
In the third quarter of this year, Samsung led with a market share of 18.3 per cent of worldwide smartphone shipments, followed by Apple (17.7 per cent) and Xiaomi (13.5 per cent).