Smartphone

A smartphone is an intelligent terminal that combines mobile phone functionality with computer capabilities.

It is characterized by the freedom to install application software and is considered one of the great inventions that made revolutionary contributions to human history. It can essentially be viewed as a portable computer equipped with mobile phone functions, combining the features of feature phones, PCs, televisions, radios, audio players, MP3 players, and PMPs into a single device.

In the late 20th century, the prevailing prediction was that "with technological advancement, a world where computers penetrate every aspect of human life would soon arrive," which was called ubiquitous computing at the time. The smartphone was the first realization of this concept. However, ubiquitous computing envisioned a society where countless computer terminals would be distributed and utilized in every aspect of human life, whereas smartphones provide all these services through a single device. In terms of being a modern technological achievement, smartphones are groundbreaking and tremendous inventions. Like TVs and certain other devices, they possess the ability to lead users to addiction. It can be said that the world before and after smartphones is fundamentally different.

The smartphone itself is a remarkably impressive product from a marketing perspective. Originally, past predictions expected PDAs to evolve into products like current smartphones, because computers were much higher-performance and more expensive products than phones. Adding phone functionality to PDAs wasn't particularly difficult, and such products appeared very quickly. However, surprisingly, phones ended up swallowing computers. From a marketing perspective, the telecommunications device distribution channel associated with carriers triumphed over the consumer electronics distribution channel that sold electronic products. Traditional PDA powerhouses like HP, unable to adapt to this marketing trend, lost their distribution channels and failed, while mobile phone sellers like Nokia lacked the ability to develop computing power like Apple and also failed. Apple and Samsung Electronics, which successfully aligned with this trend, came to dominate the market.

Rather than being about specific products or individual companies' successes or failures, this resulted from Apple strategically leveraging mobile telecommunications companies—which had massive capital invested in the market due to the emergence of the mobile communications market, and were experiencing intense competition and even price wars. This has become a highly interesting research topic in marketing studies.