Smartphone battery life must improve to meet BYOD demands (V3)

V3: http://www.v3.co.uk/v3-uk/news/2302031/smartphone-battery-life-must-improve-to-meet-byod-demands

SHENZHEN: Smartphone screens must get bigger and battery life must improve in order to keep up with the bring-your-own-device (BYOD) trend, according to Shao Yang, vice president of marketing for devices at Huawei.

The Chinese firm, which adopts a BYOD strategy for all its employees, believes that having staff use their own devices promotes convenience and efficiency, but accepts that an improvement in hardware is needed.

During a visit to Huawei's Headquarters in Shenzhen, Shao (pictured, below) told V3: "If one device can be used everywhere, I believe two things need to improve. Number one is battery: the battery needs to last a long time. And the second thing is the screen, because if people really want to satisfy different requirements, the screen needs to be larger."

Shao said he preferred a bigger screen, but added that larger screens are more popular in Asia than other countries, which he said the firm takes into account when designing devices for foreign markets.

This comes as Huawei is in the midst of a hardware push, to assert itself against competition from other hardware manufacturers.

Shao said: "The only way to sell – especially overseas – is to develop something different, that can be better than others. For the device part, we are following three steps to achieve this target. Step one is hardware. If you look at Huawei's devices, most of the innovation comes from the hardware, for example we have the [Ascend] D2, which is the most powerful, the P2 is the fastest and the P6 is the slimmest.

"This year and next year our focus is hardware. The next step is software in the next two or three years. Then we will have more revolutionary innovations. We think the phone will need to be a very powerful toolkit – the phone is a good phone, good camera, good MP3, good everything."

Patrick Zhang, president of marketing and solutions for Enterprise BG, told V3 that BYOD applies to all staff. He said: "People have different rights for accessing files – different levels have different rights. But everyone can use BYOD. Its main advantage is convenience for our staff and it can also improve the work efficiency – for example if you're in the car, on the road or in a hotel, you can also have convenience, like in the office."

Total smartphone shipments for Huawei Device in 2012 was 32 million, and in Q1 2013 the firm was the fourth largest provider in terms of smartphone shipments in the world.