New year, new tech… and a new dawn for the smartphone market?

As I write this, I should be schlepping round the annual tech extravaganza that is CES, racking up my step count and getting inspired about some of the new innovations that are coming down the line. But as luck would have it, I’m at home in Switzerland: my flights to and from Vegas were cancelled after Boeing had to ground several of its 737 Max 9 planes. To add insult to injury, I have been struck down by the flu, but these are minor frustrations in the grand scheme of things ????♂?.

So, I’ve been keeping tabs on things virtually this time, and thinking over what lies ahead in telecoms and technology more generally. There’s no doubt that operators have faced some real challenges during the past couple of years, mainly due to ongoing economic instability and cost pressures. Rising inflation and the cost of borrowing have made financing new infrastructure a more complex endeavor, and customers’ own budgets have been squeezed, meaning they have been thinking twice about investing in new devices and other kit.?

Startups have also been feeling the pinch. To put this in context, the Founders Network reported that total venture capital funding in the US dropped by almost half (42%) last year, compared with 2022, and funding rounds have been shrinking as investors become increasingly cautious and look for more compelling paths to market.

But it’s not all bad news. For a start, telco products and services remain top of the needs list, which means affordable brands like Community Fibre are seeing strong demand. Challenger sub-brands owned by ISPs and MVNOs are also performing well in these cost-conscious times. In fact, connectivity in general is booming – and set to keep trending up:

• The platform economy has driven streaming to new heights, sending TikTok, YouTube and Disney+ into the top three grossing apps by revenue. (As an aside, the most downloaded free app of 2023 was a shopping service called Temu, which offers heavily discounted products – but there have been reports of potential security issues with banking or credit card information, so it’s one to treat with caution.)
• Almost two thirds of the world’s population now have a social media account, with users spreading their digital social time over six or seven different providers.
• Messaging apps are also on a roll. One set of stats puts messaging users at more than three billion worldwide, and messaging is now the preferred communication method among millennials and gen Z.

And all of this is before we even think about the ways that people are using their devices for work, or the wider IoT and IIoT picture. In related news, after 27 months of decline, global smartphone sales started to pick up again in October, indicating a potential path to recovery.

While 5G networks have yet to bring a major shift to fixed wireless access, the internet of things and private slicing, they are now well established across most markets alongside 4G, and many of us are spending more time using connected devices, from fitness trackers and smart TVs to gaming consoles and smart exercise equipment. My own daily digital must-haves are my phone and tablet, watch, mobile pocket WiFi router, and my car – and, as I explained in my last post, I am still looking for the ultimate tracker device for my dog.

Globally, this has translated into an upward connectivity curve, with North America and Western Europe leading the charge. In 2018, the average number of devices and connections per person was 2.4. By 2023 it was 3.6, and with newer categories like home healthcare tools, immersive technologies and even brain-computer interfaces that translate our thoughts into commands being primed to take off in the next few years (not to mention AI being integrated into just about everything), I can only see the trend continuing.

But which tools and gadgets will enter our daily lives in the coming years, and which will slide into obscurity? CES has some of the answers, from the sublime to the ridiculous. I’ve been following announcements related to AI, automotive, mobility, immersive realities, robots, and more, and will share my pick of the best and weirdest tech out there. In the meantime, if you did manage to make it to Vegas, your insoles only need to last one more day – time to psych yourself up for the final push!

Photo credit: Gordon Johnson, Pixabay