tech&trends Storage

5 Storage Trends that’ll Transform Mobility Mobile phones will continue to increase in storage size, speed and imaging capabilities as the global market expands for powerful phones

– Vivek Tyagi, Director-Business Development, SanDisk India

Gigabytes (GB). That is the amount of Here are some of the most exciting trends we see in the storage used up by the InfinityBlade3 changing mobile market. game on an iPhone. The two Halo 2.8games consume 1.5GB and “Stranger” 1. China, India and the U.S. will shape the market in is over 1GB. Also there might be about 25GB of photos and more ways than one videos and 30GB of music. This is how storage consump- By 2020, these three markets are expected to account tion looks like typically on these days. for 51 percent of all purchases according to Even though one can probably be considered a “power Strategy Analytics. China alone will account for 528 million, user”, the above figures say a lot about where the smart- or 28 percent, of the 1.9 billion smartphones bought in phone market is heading. That 60GB+ for just these apps total. India, the fastest growing of the three markets, is would have far exceeded the limits of many of the top-end estimated to be 252 million, and the U.S. may consume smartphones a few years ago. The reality is that in the in- 174.6 million smartphones. creasingly mobile and interconnected “Internet of Things” But the influence will go far beyond volume shipments. (IoT) world, data consumption and creation are skyrocket- The U.S. and Chinese markets are where many of the ing. While cloud storage is increasing simultaneously, so newest and most innovative ideas have been created in is the demand for higher capacity and higher performing the mobile industry in recent years. In the U.S., the iPhone local storage in the smartphones, tablets and personal established the smartphone category and has become connected devices we depend on most. As a result, stor- the global standard leveraged by Facebook, Snapchat and age plays an important role in many of the biggest mobile others. In China, companies like and are fol- trends today. lowing Apple’s lead by designing beautiful devices coveted At SanDisk, we have the opportunity to work with all by their fast-growing fan base. major smartphone and tablet manufacturers as well as the In India, the home grown brand Micromax, has sold 9.9 leading application processor providers around the world. million units worldwide in the April-June 2015 quarter, as This gives us a unique view into the mobile ecosystem. per a recent report from Gartner. Micromax even launched

18 PCQuest OCTOBER 2015 pcquest.com twitter.com/pcquest facebook.com/pcquest linkd.in/pcquest [email protected] a subsidiary named Yu Televentures Ltd., focused primar- storage, application level architecture and application ily on digital youth. Yu Televentures has partnered with processors are making it possible to capture RAW images Cyanogen to provide customised experience to users. or shoot 4K Ultra HD video. More capabilities will lead to more content. The ef- 2. Chinese brands will go worldwide fects of these technologies will impact everyone from China, in particular, is undergoing a mobile “renaissance” device makers to suppliers of components high-resolution of sorts. There, a dynamic new wave of mobile innovators screens, social networks and cloud service providers. is bringing new approaches to the way smartphones are developed and sold. This is having a ripple effect around 4. Smartphone capacity will continue to grow the world. Chinese vendors have tripled their shipments Higher quality imaging, among other drivers, is also leading YoY in India and doubled quarter-on-quarter, according to to greater demand for storage and processing power. IDC. , Xiaomi, Huawei and Gionee alone accounted Counterpoint Research reported in February 2015 that 65 for 12% of the total smartphone market in the second percent of iPhone 6 and 6+ shipments were 128GB and quarter of FY’15.According to a 2015 Strategy Analytics’ 64GB capacity models. This year, we saw the introduction report, Chinese manufacturers now occupy five of the of the first smartphone with the potential for 320GB. It’s top ten spots in the global smartphone market and not hard to imagine that within a few years we could have account for 24 percent of shipments, collectively second models sneaking towards half-a-terabyte. only to . However, this trend is not just among flagship smart- phones; capacity is also growing at the so-called entry- 3. Smartphone users want better imaging and level smartphone in key markets such as China and India. video capabilities, and mobile manufacturers are According to a Forward Insight 2015 report, the global competing to bring new experiences to them average smartphone capacity — taking in account both In the highly competitive mobile market where innovation entry-level and flagship smartphones — will increase more matters, mobile OEMs (original equipment manufacturers) than 137 percent from 2014 to 2018. are focusing their investments in the areas that consumers Demand for capacity is helping to drive new innova- want most. Outside of form factor, two of the most tions in the flash storage industry. As a flash storage leader, important innovations that mobile OEMs tell me that their SanDisk is laser focused on new advancements in flash customers most frequently demand are more storage storage, particularly in X3 (three-bits-per-cell) NAND flash capacity and better application experiences — particularly storage technology and application level architecture, that digital photography and video. Just a few years ago, we are designed to help enable mobile OEMs to cost-effec- were using our smartphones to capture the impromptu tively offer devices that respond to consumers’ increasing photo rather than as a digital for convenience. storage demand and offer the rich, mobile experiences Now, for many of us, our smartphone is our primary consumers crave. camera. Smartphone manufacturers are responding by bringing many of the experiences that were once only 5. The difference between smartphones and possible in a high-end DSLR camera to the smartphone PCs will blur in your pocket. Today, innovative advancements in flash Just as today’s PC is yesterday’s supercomputer, today’s smartphone is yesterday’s PC. The power of the smartphone architecture (ARM and Android) is evolving “The power of the fast from capturing, consuming and sharing to creating, smartphone architecture editing and transforming. This means that applications (ARM and Android) that run on ARM and Android are becoming as capable as is evolving fast from those that run on and Windows. ARM and Android capturing, consuming and are moving from smartphones to bigger screen “phablets” sharing to creating, editing (the tablet replacement) and to sleek-looking laptops that and transforming. This will be great for running all sorts of powerful applications. These new laptops will feel just like PCs and SanDisk SSDs means that applications will be perfect for these platforms. that run on ARM and Of course, many other things will change as IoT, Android are becoming as Vivek Tyagi wearable and other devices emerge and mature, but the Director-Business capable as those that run above five trends are significant to our industry. It’s fun to Development, SanDisk India on Intel and Windows.” be deeply involved. pcquest.com twitter.com/pcquest facebook.com/pcquest linkd.in/pcquest [email protected] OCTOBER 2015 PCQuest 19