subject: ViewSonic to join smartphone industry soon [print this page] ViewSonic, a provider of visual display products, is planning to expand into the 3G smartphone industry. China will be the first region to carry the phones, followed by Europe and the Americas.This marks ViewSonic's first product in the smartphone market, but falls in line with the convergence of televisions, computers and mobile phones.
This is ViewSonic's first product in the smartphone market, but falls in line with the convergence of televisions, computers and mobile phones. As the demand for mobile phone functionality increases, the company hopes that its expertise in display technology pays off in the development of smartphones.
James Chu, the chairman and chief executive of Viewsonic, however, was optimistic.
"With 20 years of display experience this is a natural extension of our product expertise," Chu said in a statement. "This is an important strategic step for ViewSonic, as it allows us to apply our display technology to an even larger and rapidly growing worldwide market."
Chu pointed to numbers from iSuppli, which predicted 2009 global smartphone unit shipments of 192.3 million units, up 11.1 percent from 173.6 million in 2008. In September 2008 comScore reported that the number of U.S. subscribers with 3G enabled devices grew 80 percent to 64.2 million.
The company has not revealed any technical details of the capabilities or operating systems of its planned smartphones, but industry watchers speculate ViewSonic is considering Symbian, Google Android, or an embedded Linux as a platform. ViewSonic itself hints that it plans to aim at media-centric applications, leveraging its display expertise to deliver compelling mobile visual content.
It certainly won't be an easy task, with the market already facing immense competition from the likes of Apple, HTC, RIM, Nokia, Palm and others, not to mention they have to get their devices certified with carriers first. Nevertheless, Viewsonic says it is well positioned to play in this field. They did not offer any timetable for when their smartphone offerings might be available, though.
