10 Ways Smartphone Industry Will Change in 2016!

By Vijaykumar

| Updated: Saturday, January 9, 2016, 14:25 [IST]

In 2015, we have seen the Chinese entrants as well as other smartphone players to the already flooded smartphone industry, which took the competition level a step higher.

In order to beat the competition and entice consumers, brands brought higher end specs to lower end smartphones to set up new standards with their devices. Many features and specs that were first seen on premium devices now trickled down to lower end smartphones.

Last year we have noticed that octa-core taking over quad-core, 13 megapixel camera becoming a standard feature even on budget smartphone. Well, fingerprint scanner has become like a mandate feature and much more.

This post will bring you a list of top 10 trends that we expect from the smartphone industry throughout 2016.

Smartphone users will surpass 2 billion worldwide

The number of smartphone users globally will surpass 2 billion in 2016, according to a research by eMarketer. With more than 1.9 billion people using smartphones by the end of 2015, the number is expected to climb to around 2.2 billion this year.

Futurist designed smartphones

Samsung and LG have dropped clues about foldable smartphones, while Samsung is a step ahead with full-blown patent drawings and conceptual renders showing a smartphone. Well, we have seen LG G Flex 2 and the Samsung Galaxy S6 Edge, which shows the future as a natural progression for flexible display.

Down path of smartphone vendors

Analysts at IDC claim that over 2016 and the next four to five years, more than 30 percent of IT vendors will now exist as we know them today. Analysts do not suggest a significant shift in power will take place over the next five years, we can see how companies mobile businesses will continue to decrease in 2016.

A 4K resolution display with rule flagship smartphones

Sony Xperia Z5 Premium is able to reproduce 4K resolution pixel count, while staying locked into a sharp 1080p resolution for standard everyday usage. We are quite likely to see, key smartphone makers such as Samsung, Xiaomi, LG to come up with 4K resolution smartphone in 2016.

Fingerprint to iris scanner

Fingerprint reader is a new big thing in the mobile security. Well, Microsoft is already giving iris pattern recognition with the Windows Hello features found in its new Lumia handsets. We are expecting iris recognition as a security feature for high-end smartphone in 2016.

Faster charging to super-fast charging

Some currently available smartphone charge amazingly fast. According to a report, Huawei has developed a battery that charges up to ten times quicker than the regular batteries found in smartphones out in the market.

Smarter mobile assistants

Today, we have Google Now, Apple Siri and Microsoft Cortana as a personal mobile assistance and that also provides contextually relevant information when required. In 2016 we expect that, mobile assistant will be proactive and provide more meaningful information based on data and device usage patterns.

Fingerprint secured payment to the next level

Apple introduced Apple Pay, the payment initiative app with fingerprint secured Apple Pay. Competing this, Samsung came up with its Samsung Pay service, then Google implemented fingerprint security and mobile payment into Android Marshmallow. Well, we expect that in 2016 will show up the next level of mobile payment initiative system.

USB Type-C a commonplace for smartphones

We have already seen the USB Type-C in some flagship smartphone currently available in the market out there. We expect that we can see all the smartphone including mid-range to lower end will have the advantage of USB Type-C.

Android everywhere

Android will be the world's most popular operating system. According to the IDC, Android will hold its position for the next five years, driven mainly by smartphones and IoT.