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Asia to lead the way from mobile-first to mobile-only

TAIPEI — Five years from now, you could wake up in the morning, turn to the screen on your wall, and ask if you need to get up from bed. After communicating with your mobile phone, and finding out that the flight you need to catch at the airport will be late, the screen replies: You can sleep in for 17 more minutes.

TAIPEI — Five years from now, you could wake up in the morning, turn to the screen on your wall, and ask if you need to get up from bed. After communicating with your mobile phone, and finding out that the flight you need to catch at the airport will be late, the screen replies: You can sleep in for 17 more minutes.

Painting this possible scenario of daily life, Google executive chairman Eric Schmidt yesterday (Nov 4) highlighted the future of mobile phones as an “infinitely helpful personal digital assistant”.

This development would come as the world, led by Asia, transits from a “mobile-first” environment to “mobile-only”, where all functionality is on mobile – where mobile is the main device of choice – instead of, say, on a website. Pointing to the vast numbers of new mobile users in Asia — as more people in developing countries gain access to a smart phone — Mr Schmidt said: “Asia is going to be a huge market for a few years for this.”

Mr Schmidt was speaking, via video conference, at Google’s Mobile First World event at Taipei, Taiwan.

He noted, however, that there remains an “asymmetry” that needs to be addressed: Asia has the people and the hardware, but the software development is still taking place in the United States.

He said: “If you look at the success of WeChat, aAlipay — (these are) scalable platforms that are very large because there are, frankly, more Chinese people than there are Americans.

“So it should be possible for the next generation of software companies to emerge from Asia and instead of being regional champions, like WeChat, be a global champion.”

SINGAPORE: A MODEL FOR MOBILE TRENDS?

Mr Chris Yergoa, APAC Engineering VP, Google Play, pointed to recent survey statistics showing Asia ahead in smartphone adoption — and only in Asia are there more smartphone users than computer users.

The Google survey, the Consumer Barometer, showed that Singapore has the highest smartphone penetration in the world at 85 per cent, followed by South Korea at 80 per cent.

In South-east Asia, Singapore could be seen as a frontrunner for mobile trends, according to Mr Andrew McGlinchey, Product Manager for Southeast Asia, Google. “We can kind of look ahead at what Singapore is doing and say, maybe this is the model that … the rest of the world is going to get to.”

He cited reasons such as having the necessary infrastructure in place and an educated population that can afford to get their hands on the newest smartphones. “The infrastructure is there, the data is there, the people are educated, the people can afford the devices and like the rest of Asia, they are ready, they are open, young and interested…”

It is “pretty clear”, he said during an interview with Singapore media, that the trend now is heading towards “mobile-only”.

Barring certain circumstances, such as when one needs to create a document for work, “most people who are going to use the internet as a user, they don’t have a particular need for a laptop or desktop ever”, he said.

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