Ultra-Mobile

We still like big screens, but we do like things to be "ultra-mobile." Gartner is a guy to pay attention to.

Thx Ron.

Gartner Report 

Patently Apple

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"The PC and ultramobile semiconductor market will decline, as semiconductor device prices dip through 2022. Although platforms and devices will diversify, semiconductor technology product managers must mainly focus on ways to control price declines to avoid revenue losses."

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Of course, if you could go ultra-mobile and still retain a large screen -- these companies could transition from "avoiding losses" to "maximizing gains."

My favorite bet -- Sharp/Foxconn -- for the display-only contract, could bring large displays to mobile devices like crazy.

Don't forget, that in their presentation, MicroVision thinks INTERACTIVE DISPLAY is still their biggest play for next year, and we haven't heard about that contract yet. (Not sure when we will, but I'm expecting it.)

And, big screens in small devices.... well, that is capable of generating the kind of growth that cameras in Phones had --- because in spite of the enormous growth in cameras, people like to look at screens more than they like to take pictures.


Remember the growth in Camera sales chart?

The new display engine has very high resolution, far better than my computer screen at 1680*1050.

From Microvision
“Our new MEMS scanner represents a major advancement for our scanner portfolio,” said Perry Mulligan, MicroVision’s Chief Executive Officer. “The new MEMS scanner utilizes two mirrors, an ultra-flat piezo-electric 2mm diameter mirror, combined with a magnetic 6x5mm mirror, to achieve industry leading resolution of 2560 x 1440 for laser beam scanned displays. Providing users with a flicker-free experience, the new scanner operates at 120Hz, while maintaining about the same power consumption as our current single mirror product,” Mulligan added.

Smartphone boom about to bust?

Thanks for the heads-up Roger.

Then again -- perhaps RoBoHon will pick up some new market.

From Yahoo Finance -- more at the source.

We have a situation where market saturation is happening. (There are 7 billion people on earth, and 1.4 billion smart phones sold annually -- 2015 numbers -- so one in six people on earth last year got a new smartphone. Expecting them to be a little bit durable -- that's nearly total penetration of the possible market.)

The smartphone boom is about to go bust, with sales growth expected to fall to single digits in 2016. That’s a far cry from the 73% growth the industry saw just six years ago.

According to market research group Gartner Inc., worldwide smartphone sales will increase by just 7% in 2016. IDC Research, meanwhile, predicts growth will slow to just 3.1%.

>>>> Of course, that's 98,000,000 more smartphones than were sold last year, if you consider the 1.4 billion sold last year. <<<<

Why such a precipitous drop? Simply put, because consumers already have too many smartphones in their hands. Smartphone markets in North America, Europe, Japan and more mature Asia and Pacific markets have already reached 90% penetration, according to Gartner. That’s a lot of smartphones.

To try to counteract this trend, some US carriers and handset makers are taking steps to get consumers interested in purchasing phones at a faster clip. Gartner, for example, points to Apple’s buyback program that lets you get a new handset after having your phone for a year. AT&T, Sprint, T-Mobile, and Verizon offer similar upgrade programs.

But without a fundamental shift in smartphone design or function, the market will likely continue to see minimal growth going forward.

>>>> Bring on PicoP -- which can lead to a fundamental shift in smartphone design and cause a market boom that the industry is craving. <<<<