A Competitive Analysis of the Smartphone Industry

智慧型手機產業這幾年的快速成長吸引了眾多廠商的加入，並且由於免費的手機作業系統 - Android平台的興起，伴隨著低價競爭的趨勢，智慧型手機的使用者族群不再侷限於商用人士或是高端消費者，它已經漸漸變成大眾普及化的產品。在激烈的競爭當中，除了推出更多樣功能之外，各家廠商無不主打低價促銷智慧型手機。低價促銷通常需要行動服務業者給與手機廠商價格補貼，伴隨而來的是消費者須與行動服務業者提供的行動上網服務綁約，因此也間接得幫助了推廣行動上網的普及，並產生行動網際網路服務的眾多商機。 一般而言除了打電話之外，智慧型手機的核心價值在於它提供了使用者『立即存取資訊』的能力，讓使用者可以在何時何地都能上網搜索、閱讀資訊以及收發電子郵件…等等。因此它跟能存取的行動資訊服務的內容深度及廣度是息息相關的，其關係是智慧型手機與行動網際網路服務的需求有著『網路外部性』的相關性：行動網際網路服務的流行會帶動智慧型手機的需求增加，而智慧型手機的流行也會增加人們在行動網際網路服務上的使用量。並以此特性為思考主軸來發展品牌業者的競爭策略。 在本篇論文中，將首先闡述智慧型手機的資訊處理概念，描述在裝置上能傳送、接收、展示以及處理資訊的各種功能及應用串聯，接著探討各種行動資訊流的類別及價值鍊特性以供可能的創新服務之發展性探討。然後，分析整個產業的上下游供應鍊及五大主流手機平台的優劣勢。本研究選定全球排名前四名的品牌業者為代表，一一分析它們的產品線布局及效率、產品特性以及發展趨勢，最後提出一些策略性的發展建議。The rapid growth of the smartphone industry had attracted new entrants to join the competition. Due to the emergence of Android, a free mobile platform, and the trend of aggressive price competition in the industry, most companies no longer only targeted on business users or high-end consumers and gradually expanded the scope of target customers to reach mass consumers. Price promotion became their main strategy. Price promotions usually require mobile network operators to subsidize phone makers in exchange for binding user contracts with operators'' mobile Internet access plans. Thus, they helped to penetrate the service subscriptions of mobile Internet access and created more business opportunities for mobile Internet services. Besides making phone calls, in general the key value of smartphone is to provide users the capability of instant information access in anywhere and anytime, such as enabling users to search Internet, read information, send or receive emails…etc. Therefore, its value is strongly related with the breadth and depth of mobile information services. There are network externalities effect between the demands for smartphones and mobile information services: the increasing popularity of mobile information services will stimulate smartphone sales, and vice versa. This characteristic is the key idea of thesis research to analyze competitive strategies for own-brand phone makers. In this thesis, an abstract view of smartphone is illustrated at first to bring the concept of information-centric usage. The ways of information delivery, viewing, and processing in a smartphone are explored. Then, various information types and value chains are discussed for service innovations followed by the analysis of the industry supply chain and the five dominant mobile platforms'' pros and cons. Lastly, the worldwide top four own-brand phone makers are selected for analyzing their product roadmaps, product line effectiveness, technical characteristics and trends. This thesis concludes with five strategic suggestions for top four phone makers