At a time when the global smartphone market is entering an innovation bottleneck, AI technology is being pinned on high hopes and becoming an important driving force for new growth in the industry. Hu Baishan, executive vice president and chief operating officer of vivo, recently expressed his opinion that generative AI technology may open a full-scale explosion of AI mobile phones in the next five years. China Exportsemi will deeply analyze the three-stage path, market potential and industry competition pattern of AI mobile phone development, and discuss its future development trend.
The three-stage evolution of AI mobile phone technology
Hu Baishan pointed out that the technological evolution of AI mobile phones can be divided into three key stages:
Phase 1: AI Function Optimization Basic Experience
AI technology first enhances the user experience by improving the traditional functions of the mobile phone. For example, functions such as AI voice cancellation and smart phone secretary have achieved a certain degree of popularity, helping users obtain more intelligent services in scenarios such as image processing and voice interaction. At this stage, AI mainly relies on lightweight algorithms, which are relatively balanced with hardware resources and have low development costs, which has been accepted by the market.
Phase 2: deep integration of large models and operating systems
At present, smart phones are in the pioneering period of this stage. By deeply integrating large language models with operating systems, AI phones can more accurately identify user intentions and provide personalized services. For example, AI can proactively identify scheduling needs or intelligently recommend content, greatly improving operational efficiency and user satisfaction. However, this stage is still limited by SoC computing power and algorithm optimization, which requires more efficient collaborative development of software and hardware.
Phase 3: moving towards server-level computing power
Hu Baishan predicts that AI technology will enter the third stage of putting forward higher requirements for hardware computing power in the next five years. At this stage, the phone's chip performance will need to be close to the computing level of the current server to support complex generative AI applications. To this end, vivo has reserved nearly 10,000 GPU accelerator cards to provide infrastructure support for future large model training and deployment. However, current chip architectures and battery life still need to be further breakthroughs to achieve a balance between performance and energy efficiency.
Picture: vivo Hu Baishan: The evolution of AI mobile phones is divided into three stages, and it will take 5 years for a full outbreak to break out
Market potential and growth prospects
According to Canalys data, AI phones accounted for about 16% of global smartphone shipments in 2024, and this number will jump to 54% by 2028. The AI handset market is expected to grow at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 63% between 2023 and 2028. This explosive growth is mainly due to the increased demand for end-side AI functions such as intelligent assistants and personalized recommendations.
High-end smartphones will become the main battlefield for AI technology to be the first to land. Brands, such as Apple and Huawei, have made generative AI a core selling point for their flagship models. With the gradual maturity of related technologies, the application scenarios of AI mobile phones will also be extended to the mid-end market, accelerating the popularization of AI technology.
Counterpoint predicts that the global penetration rate of AI mobile phones will reach 4% in 2024, and shipments are expected to exceed 100 million units. By 2027, this penetration will further grow to 40%, with total shipments reaching 522 million units. This trend shows that AI technology is gradually shifting from a niche high-end experience to a universal feature in the smartphone market, unleashing huge market potential.
Intensified competition in the industry and highlights in the Chinese market
In the global smartphone market, Chinese manufacturers are becoming active explorers and promoters of AI technology. Brands such as Huawei, vivo, and Xiaomi are striving to seize the lead in this new track by strengthening their ecosystems and optimizing AI algorithms. For example, the Huawei Mate series introduces the combination of HarmonyOS and AI large models to bring users a more natural interaction experience. Xiaomi relies on its IoT ecosystem to extend the AI assistant function to smart home devices to improve user stickiness.
While U.S. brands have an advantage in the high-end segment, Chinese manufacturers are significantly competitive in terms of cost optimization and rapid iteration. This has created favorable conditions for the popularization of AI phones in the mid-market, while further intensifying competition in the industry. In the future, with the continuous breakthrough of AI technology, the competition between major manufacturers will not only be limited to technological leadership, but also involve the innovation of business models and the differentiation of market strategies.
The Future and Challenges of Generative AI
In the long term, the introduction of generative AI technology marks a qualitative change in the capabilities of smartphones. In the future, mobile phones will evolve from a single communication tool to an intelligent "personal assistant", providing a full range of services from schedule management to emotional companionship.
However, there are still many challenges to overcome to achieve this vision:
1. Technical bottlenecks: SoC computing power, power management, and model optimization need to be continuously overcome.
2. Cost control: The R&D and deployment costs of generative AI technology are high, and the penetration of the low-end market is limited.
3. User acceptance: AI privacy concerns and technical complexity can influence consumer acceptance.
In this regard, Hu Baishan emphasized that the technological breakthrough of AI mobile phones not only requires independent innovation of enterprises, but also requires the collaboration of the entire industry to promote the integration of resources and technology sharing in the upstream and downstream industrial chains.
Conclusion
AI technology is injecting new vitality into the smartphone industry, and the in-depth application of generative AI will bring revolutionary user experience and market growth. Although it will still take years for a full-blown explosion to explode, we can foresee that this trend will lead the smartphone industry to new heights. In the future competition, whether or not they can seize the transformative opportunities brought by AI technology will determine the success or failure of manufacturers in the global market. For consumers, the popularization of AI mobile phones will be an unprecedented upgrade of digital life experience.
With the continuous advancement of technology and the maturity of the ecosystem, the development prospect of AI mobile phones is undoubtedly worthy of the common expectations of the industry and consumers.
