My take about the year 2012 and what 2013 has got to offer

The year 2012 has come and gone. It began as much expectations as the other years did begin. The biggest of the event was the coming to an end of the joint venture partnership between Sonny and Ericsson and we all waited with bated breaths to see what Sony was going to with its return to the mobile phone market. 2012 also saw Samsung bring the fight to Apple by upping its marketing strategy and using the very tricks that apple used when it came to the hyping and launching o it products. This year will not go without being mentioned as having been the year in which we saw the biggest payers in the industry sue each other over petty patents and the major wins ad loses incurred in courts by the concerned parties. The likes of Apple, Samsung HTC, RIM and Even Nokia were at it in the patent infringement claim. The fall of RIM and Nokia was a major event as Samsung overtook Nokia to the number one worldwide phone shipping manufacturer. Sony begun its return by doing right and by that I mean getting its product range lean but just before we even saw the flagship on the shelves in most countries it went ahead and launched many more Xperia range of phones that have got the market spinning in confusion. The good thing is that Sony gained market share in Europe thanks to the constant battling between Apple and Samsung as well as the dwindling of the HTC and Nokia’s market share.

2012 will go down as well as the year that saw Nokia and Microsoft join hand in what many saw as reinvention of two of the tech world giants. Nobody can dispute that given the product curve had hit the plateau and is losing elevation ta the expense of the new school manufacturers. The two were not the only one as Sony did its restructuring by laying of thousands and the pulling of out of some markets by HTC especially south America. Most of those re-inventing have looked to the Chinese market for growth.

As an African writer, I do believe and can bear witness to the fact that Samsung means business for this continent. In 2012 we swathe company launch it products ranging from tablets, phablets and phones as soon as they launch in the rest of the world. For those who think there is not enough disposable income then you have got to be blind to what Samsung sees. Nokia was big in Africa just a few years ago but right they aren’t even playing second position.

So, what has the year 2013 got in store for the mobile telecommunication industry? If you have been having your head on the ground for long the then you know of a few developments. 2013 will be starting with a big event where we expect the announcement of either major industry developments such as more and more phablets, 1080p display, 128GB memory, better imaging chips, bigger RAM and energy efficient displays. We have already seen a 1080 screen on HTC DNA and we have also heard rumors of higher PPIs from the likes of Sony and thinner and even more flexible displays from Samsung. As the clock ticks and we usher in the New Year, we rest assured that this will be the year that will define a leap in the mobile telecommunication. My biggest hope is that soon, the technology transfer should happen to make it affordable for the people in emerging markets to able to afford real smart phones.

This article will be incomplete if I never talked about the situation in my country where it has all got to do with the quality of mobile phones of handsets being imported into the country and the lack of seriousness by the state regulators to stamp the authority in curbing counterfeit phones. 2012 saw the switching off of counterfeit phones by the Communication Commission of Kenya (CCK) and barely a week into this, the phones were being hacked backed into service. The biggest culprits here are the service providers who seem to more concerned with profit making rather than the quality of service they render. The largest service provider Safaricomjust ranked last in a recent serve and not much has been done about it by the regulators. You will agree with me that 2013 has got to be the year we will see change in service and the regulators walking the walk just as they talk the talk.

For us the consumers, 2013 is no good at all. I will be naive to say that you have not been watched by the state just like in the minority report. The sad thing is that this is just about to be justified by the impending issuance of ip t every phone user just as it is in China and many of the repressive states like Cuba. I object to none of the above but given how things go down here, the state cannot be trusted to be a big brother.

The app world has been great the world over. Android has really improved in the year 2012 and the quality of local applications has also been really good. With incubation and innovation hubs such as iHub, NaiLab and the Strathmore University in collaboration with Google, Microsoft as well as handset manufacturers such as Samsung, the Kenyan developer community has seen its biggest growth in the year 2012. A few Kenyan Apps have won awards and that has seen a few investments made into IT. The biggest challenge to local developers as the year comes to an end will still be the inability to market their apps, come up with original apps as well proper presentation skills in order to attract investment in their ideas.  The year 2013 looks bright; “given that much attention has been gained assuming that we will be able to retain this momentum”.