AFP, PARISPhone makers will seek to entice new buyers with better cameras and bigger screens at the world’s biggest mobile fair starting tomorrow in Spain after a year of flat smartphone sales. However, with no major innovations awaited in handsets, analysts expect the four-day Mobile World Congress in Barcelona to focus on new uses for artificial intelligence (AI) and the looming deployment of super-fast 5G wireless networks. The camera “seems to have become a major source of differentiation for the latest generation of smartphones,” CCS Insight mobile phone analyst Ben Wood said. Samsung remained the world’s biggest seller of smartphones last year with a 21.6 percent market share, up from 21.1 percent the previous year, research firm IDC Corp said. The sector is hoping the introduction of the blazing-fast 5G mobile internet service — which is is about 1,000 times faster than 4G — will trigger a wave of growth in equipment sales and mobile services.

Source: Taipei Times February 24, 2018 15:56 UTC