Mobile’s Evolution from Brick to Smart Hub

When the first mobile telephone call was made on 3 April 1973, nobody could have predicted how the very first 1.1kg mobile device would one day become the sleek centre of every consumer’s digital world.

“The evolution of the mobile phone, particularly in recent years, has been nothing short of ground-breaking,” says Craige Fleischer, Director of Integrated Mobility at Samsung Electronics South Africa. “Where it was first seen as a possible tool to take voice calls on the go, the mobile phone is now a communications tool, banking portal, social integrator, business enabler, entertainment device and so much more.”

While the first mobile telephone call was made in 1973 by Motorola Executive Martin Cooper, the mainstream arrival of mobile phones only took place ten years later. Mobile phones went on sale in 1983, priced well beyond the reach of the man on the street. Short Message Service (SMS) functionality arrived only years after that, with the first SMS sent over the Vodafone GSM network in the United Kingdom on 3 December 1992, when Neil Papworth of Sema Group used a PC to text ‘Merry Christmas’ to the Orbitel 901 handset of Vodafone’s Richard Jarvis.

Texting may have been the catalyst for what came next: companies and consumers quickly saw value in being able to choose between voice and text communications. Screens improved and phones became capable of sending images. Browsing, entertainment and cameras became standard mobile features and the era of the smartphone dawned. Over 250,000 separate patents now reside within the technology that mobile users take for granted today.

Samsung has led the market on many of the most important mobile phone developments, including: World’s First CDMA Phone (1996) World’s First MP3 Player Phone (1999) World’s First CDMA Camera Phone (2000) World’s First Phone with Colour LCD (TFT) (2002) World’s First Phone with Front-Facing Camera (2003) World’s First 5 MP Camera Phone (2004) Thinnest Mobile Phone - Ultra Edition 5.9 (2007) World’s First Quad core mobile device (2012) World’s First Curved Display Smartphone (2013) World’s First Smartphone with 4G LTE-Advanced Service - Galaxy S5 4G+ (2014) World’s First Smartphone with a Curved Edge Screen - Galaxy Note Edge (2014)   According to GSMA*, there are now over 4.7 billion unique mobile subscribers in the world and over 3.8 billion smartphones in use – forecast to grow to 5.8 billion by 2020. Smartphones are becoming more intelligent daily, with augmented reality, virtual reality and artificial intelligence adding to their features.

“The smartphone is clearly getting smarter and more integrated to everything people do today. As the world’s leading smartphone manufacturer, Samsung is continually innovating and improving design, functionality as well as the mobile ecosystem to take the mobile phone to frontiers no one dreamt possible,” concludes Fleischer.   For more information, please visit: https://www.gsmaintelligence.com/ http://www.mobileconnectivityindex.com/ http://www.samsung.com/de/news/pressemappen/Samsung_45_Years_of_Innovation.PDF

About Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd.Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd. inspires the world and shapes the future with transformative ideas and technologies. The company is redefining the worlds of TVs, smartphones, wearable devices, tablets, cameras, digital appliances, medical equipment, network systems, and semiconductor and LED solutions. For the latest news, please visit Samsung Newsroom at http://news.samsung.com.

For further information, please contact:Theo BoshoffPhathutshedzo NepfumbadaEpic MSL GroupSamsung Electronics South Africa011 784 4790 | 011 549 7969 | 083 329 2150 | 078 213 4975Theo.boshoff@epicmslgroup.com | p.nepfumbada@samsung.com