Centre of gravity in mobile ecosystem set to shift from US to Asia

The trillion dollar smartphone industry with its telecom carriers, handset makers and content providers is now gearing up for its growth in the Asian market.

Director at mobile advertiser Flurry Inc, Mary Ellen Gordon said that the centre of gravity in the mobile ecosystem is likely to shift from the United States and Western Europe toward Asia, Stuff.co.nz reports.

According to the report, emerging markets where cost-conscious users demand cheaper gadgets and cheaper access to cheaper services will become the next area for smartphone growth.

As the shift is directed towards Asia, it is going to pose trouble for the big players like Apple Inc and Samsung Electronics which together sell half of the world's smartphones as much of the next growth will come from users of devices that are up to 10 times cheaper than those in the developed world.

A Hyderabad-based analyst at BitChemy Ventures, Sameer Singh said that India as the world's second largest mobile market poses biggest competition where the price of a low-end Android phone has halved in the past year to about 50 dollars.

The report said that Indian handset maker Micromax, released its Canvas 4 phone this month with features comparable to Samsung's Galaxy S3 and Note 2, but at up to half the price and Singh noted that it is very hard for a company like Samsung to compete with such cheaper brands.

Apart from smartphone price, the Asian market has lot to offer in terms of tablets, mini PCs, applications and services and Singapore-based analyst at Internet metrics company comScore, Joe Nguyen said that at the end of the day these are utility devices much like the PC was, the report added.