Uncategorized
Is This Expertise the Subsequent Large Factor?
Set your calendars for April 2022…
That’s the month and yr that the subsequent futuristic shopper tech gadget formally goes mainstream… and the smartphone formally dies.
A minimum of that’s what a prime scientist at Fb predicted. And I agree — give or take a month or two!
In all seriousness, it’d come as a shock to longtime readers that I’m calling for the top of the smartphone growth.
In spite of everything, for the higher a part of the final decade, I’ve boldly proclaimed, “The exploding use of cellular units guarantees to be the fastest-growing — and probably greatest — technological pattern ever.”
However the knowledge don’t lie. And on this case, the pattern is formally useless.
The Smartphone Increase is Already Useless
Proper now, smartphone adoption in the USA stands at roughly 80%. And the final 20% by no means comes simply, rapidly, or profitably — particularly for traders.
So for all intents and functions, the smartphone growth is already on dying’s doorstep.
For those who want extra proof, take into account that international smartphone gross sales peaked years in the past (2016), as you’ll be able to see within the chart under. And the dynamics of the market now resemble the PC market, which peaked in 2011 after which steadily declined yearly thereafter.
I’m sorry, but when a tech pattern isn’t rising at a wholesome double-digit clip, it’s dying.
And on this case, we are able to neglect about any technological leapfrogs — like multitouch interfaces or fingerprint sensors — resurrecting smartphone development like they did up to now.
Why? As a result of true smartphone innovation is useless, too.
You probably have any doubt, choose up the most recent units from Samsung, Apple, and Huawei. You’ll discover only a few variations. Consequently, all that’s left is the potential for incremental enhancements.
We’re simply at that time within the irrefutable cycle of expertise improvement and adoption for smartphones.
Or as main enterprise capitalist Benedict Evans explains:
“New expertise of any form tends to comply with an S-curve. At first, enchancment and innovation appears sluggish as the elemental ideas are labored out. Then there’s a interval of very speedy change, innovation and have growth. After which, because the market matures and the ‘white area’ is crammed in, perceptible enchancment tends to decelerate.”
So we’ve clearly reached “peak” innovation for smartphones — which begs the query, “What’s subsequent?”
Get Prepared for Augmented Actuality
Newsflash: We don’t must guess.
If we merely comply with the phrases and actions of the world’s prime expertise corporations and traders, there’s no mistaking it. They’re all betting large that augmented actuality (AR) would be the subsequent “large factor.”
The truth is, as a columnist for Forbes just lately proclaimed, “Each main tech firm is now engaged on good glasses.”
He’s not kidding, both. Contemplate:
- Google, after being method too early, just lately re-entered the area by buying North, a Canadian maker of sunshine, natural-looking good glasses. In different phrases, the precise reverse of Google’s authentic AR product.
- Final month, Fb went public with its plans for its “holographic optics for skinny and light-weight digital actuality” in a analysis report.
- Intel’s been messing with creating “regular” trying good glasses for years.
- Amazon has Amazon Echo Frames.
- Microsoft has Hololens.
- And naturally, Apple is now broadly identified to be working by itself model of AR glasses, based mostly on its patent filings.
Add it up and it’s a foregone conclusion based mostly on the actions of the massive tech corporations that AR units are on a trajectory to be as indispensable to us as smartphones. And meaning it makes eminent sense that we must be betting large on AR, too.
So how can we go about it?
Sadly, an ETF targeted on augmented actuality doesn’t exist. Not but at the least.
Not way back, an oblique choice existed: the Defiance Subsequent Gen Video Gaming ETF (VIDG).
As its title suggests, it targeted on video video games, one of many key areas the place AR expertise was anticipated to have a direct impression. Nevertheless it was compelled to shut on the finish of final yr because of a scarcity of investor curiosity.
Briefly, the timing was mistaken. However with the AR mega-trend formally heating up now, the time is lastly proper.
With that in thoughts, in my column subsequent week, I’m going to share a number of direct methods to spend money on the burgeoning AR megatrend. So keep tuned!
Forward of the tape,
Lou Basenese