News
Huawei takes Apple’s crown as second largest smartphone brand
Posts 41 percent growth from last year
For years, Samsung and Apple have seized the tech industry with an unbreakable vise. Unabated sales have crowned both companies as the rulers of the smartphone world. However, fringe brands have started making a case for their own turns on top of the food chain.
Particularly, Chinese brands like Huawei and Xiaomi have recently made gigantic pushes with their recent launches. On one side, Huawei launched the massive P20 series to widespread acclaim. On the other, Xiaomi pushed a flurry of different lineups like the Mi 8 and Redmi 6.
Now, both Huawei and Xiaomi’s efforts have paid off. Analysts from Counterpoint Research have punched in the numbers for global phone shipments from last quarter.
Surprisingly, Apple has fallen to third place from their long-standing grip on second, despite enjoying a one percent increase in shipments. Taking a comfortable lead for second, Huawei has posted an astonishing 41 percent growth from last year. From 38.5 million units, the company has shipped 54.2 million units this year.
Despite a declining Chinese market, Huawei grew by 21 percent. Meanwhile, the brand exploded internationally, posting a 71 percent growth overseas.
According to Counterpoint Research, Huawei’s massive growth comes from their renewed efforts in the premium segment. Additionally, the company’s sister brand Honor made huge waves in the midrange market.
Lagging shortly behind Apple, Xiaomi has also declared huge growth numbers — up 43 percent from last year’s numbers. From just 23.1 million units, Xiaomi has sold 33 million units this year.
In other news, HMD’s Nokia grew by an unbelievable margin — almost 800 percent due to the rerelease of Nokia’s beloved phone lines.
As the numbers can tell you, Chinese smartphones are slowly gaining on the unbridled supremacy of Samsung and Apple. Without market-defining innovations in the Galaxy S9 and iPhone 8, both Samsung and Apple may very well step back from the limelight if their next releases don’t step up.
SEE ALSO: OnePlus leads India’s premium smartphone market, edges out Apple and Samsung
Nothing goes together more than a Chinese smartphone brand and the relentless pursuit for a bigger battery. For years, Chinese brands have engaged in a war for this particular component. Now, the latest salvo has been fired. Honor is reportedly working on a phone with a gigantic 14000mAh battery.
Today, the biggest battery capacity you can find on an Honor phone is 11000mAh. The Honor X80 Pro Max already offers a battery that can last you more than a single day. At this point, it’s certainly more than enough for our daily needs.
According to Digital Chat Station on Weibo, a smartphone brand is currently working on a 14000mAh battery. Though the leak does not explicitly pinpoint Honor, the emoji used (a wolf) is historically used to imply the Chinese brand in Weibo parlance.
A 14000mAh is just absurdly huge. With a battery larger than some powerbanks, battery anxiety becomes moot. It’s bordering on “can we bring this on a plane” territory.
As with all rumored features, the next question is when this battery will arrive on a consumer-ready device. Given how serious the battery wars are for the Chinese market, it’s only a matter of time.
SEE ALSO: HONOR continues APAC expansion, to launch 600 series in Taiwan
Yesterday, Nothing officially teased the Phone (4b), an all-new line positioned below the Phone (4a) series. At the time, the teaser revealed nothing but the design of the upcoming phone. However, ahead of its July 7 launch, the Phone (4b) suddenly appeared on Geekbench, spoiling a few of its mysterious specs.
According to the listing, the Phone (4b) will run the SM6650, more popularly known as the Snapdragon 6 Gen 4. It’s a modestly powered processor built for the budget to midrange segments of the performance spectrum. Having this processor does confirm that the phone belongs to the step below the Phone (4a), bringing affordability to a name other than CMF.
Besides the processor, the new phone will come with an Adreno 810 GPU and 8GB of RAM. Inside, it will ship with Android 16 out of the box, but this will likely be upgradeable to Android 17 later this year.
It’s already confirmed that the Phone (4b) will be quite the looker. The phone will slightly depart from the design philosophy of the Phone (4a) series. Though it will still have a sizable rear island, the camera setup will just be a small vertical strip on the top-left corner. Additionally, the lighting element typical of all Nothing phones will be a small horizontal strip on the bottom-right corner.
Thankfully, the wait for more specs won’t be long. Nothing has confirmed that the phone’s launch is set for July 7.
News
Polaroid says, enjoy the beach before AI ruins it
“We know what we stand to lose if we don’t protect it.”
Tongue-in-cheek marketing is a soothing balm for a world where false promises are more often advertised. But, what happens when those tongue-in-cheek jokes strike a nerve and make you think, “maybe this isn’t a joke anymore”? Polaroid, a huge proponent of analog technology, has put up such a billboard to enjoy the beach “before the data centers drink it all up.”
Right in front of Coney Island (and right in time for summer), Polaroid has a simple message: “Go jump in the water before the data centers drink it all up.”
Though funny by itself, the message plays on an ongoing fear that today’s data centers, built for AI, have such a high water requirement that each query takes up gallons every time. This is, of course, slightly hyperbolic, but data centers are indeed exerting a lot of pressure on their area’s resources. They take a lot of water for cooling and electricity to keep open.
In a statement, Polaroid says that they’re not anti-digital. Rather, “we know we have to live alongside it, but we’re deeply pro-human and know what humanity gives us. And we know what we stand to lose if we don’t protect it. That’s a fight worth fighting,” says Polaroid’s creative director Patricia Varella, via LBB.
Now, this isn’t a completely altruistic ad. It’s still advertising the new Go Generation 3. Still, if you’re looking for a product to go alongside today’s shifting sentiments against AI, a Polaroid might be it.
SEE ALSO: The Loop PH rebrands as lifestyle-tech destination
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