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Samsung Electronics’ flagship smartphones Galaxy S24 series are displayed during their unveiling ceremony in Seoul, South Korea, January 15, 2024. 

Kim Hong-ji | Reuters

BARCELONA – Smartphone makers are talking a big game about artificial intelligence this year. 

And they’re so confident about features they’re cramming into their phones that they think it’ll drive a new “supercycle” for the industry. 

Samsung, Google, and Chinese firm Honor are among the names that are beefing up their latest handsets with AI-powered features for translating and summarizing conversations and taking and editing photos with the power of generative AI algorithms. 

These are algorithms that are baked into the devices’ chips themselves, rather than accessed via the cloud. 

Samsung has gone big on generative AI with its Galaxy S24 Ultra smartphone. 

Google, too, has integrated AI directly into its latest Pixel phones. 

Apple, meanwhile, is also reportedly exploring the addition of on-device AI features to the next iPhone, per the Financial Times

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This is all coming at a time when Mobile World Congress, the mobile technology industry’s biggest trade show of the year, is kicking off. 

Major device makers like Samsung, Huawei, Honor, and Oppo, plus chip companies like Qualcomm and MediaTek, are expected to talk a big game about how much AI is transforming our personal devices. 

When was the last smartphone supercycle? 

Smartphone makers have been dreaming of a “supercycle” in their industry, driven by AI, after a bruising few years that saw device sales slow aggressively. 

In 2023, smartphone sales fell to 1.16 billion units, the lowest point for unit shipments in a decade. 

The last “supercycle” in smartphones happened between 2010 and 2015, where in five years the market grew fivefold from roughly 300 million units sold per year to 1.5 billion units, according to IDC data. 

That came at a time when smartphones were just starting to become mainstream thanks to the emergence of widely used applications: Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp, Uber, Snapchat, Twitter, and Candy Crush Saga, to name a few. 

“The growth happened not just because Apple launched the iPhone, or because Google launched Android,” Francisco Jeronimo, vice president of data and analytics at research firm IDC, told CNBC. 

“What really made it successful, that supercycle, was the fact that people were able to get the internet in their pocket,” Jeronimo said, in a phone interview with CNBC. 

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Other things were happening at the time, including the ability to make video calls over the internet with 3G, and the transition to 4G which meant faster speeds. 

“We saw very popular operating systems not just the browser, but a world of applications that brought so many services and so much content through the phone,” Jeronimo said. 

Ben Wood, chief analyst of CCS Insight, pinpoints the unveiling of the iPhone as the last “seismic disruption” that took place in the industry.  

“Everything since then has been less disruptive,” Wood told CNBC. 

‘AI phone era’

Major smartphone players are betting that a supercycle is about to happen thanks to AI. 

Samsung, which launched the Galaxy S24 Ultra earlier this year, thinks that there’s a strong chance that AI will drive a new dawn that can breathe fresh life into the industry. 

James Kitto, Samsung’s head of mobile experience division in the U.K., told CNBC the mobile industry is at the start of a new era of hypergrowth driven by AI. 

“There’s every expectation that will be the case. We’re seeing some really, really high demand,” Kitto told CNBC from Samsung’s European headquarters in Chertsey, England. 

The Galaxy S24 came with the ability to circle an object on your camera and pull up Google Search results for it, as well as live translation of phone calls to people speaking in foreign languages. 

“We’re right now at the dawning of an entirely new era, an AI phone era,” Kitto said.

Brian Rakowski, vice president of product management for Google’s Pixel phone unit, said he expects AI to drive renewed interest around mobile technology. 

Google has been working on integrating AI into its devices for years, most notably with the addition of Tensor line of smartphone processors. 

“We already saw that AI was going to be the differentiator and the next wave of innovation across all technology but especially mobile,” Rakowski told CNBC. “It is so key to everything all our computing lives and computing platform.” 

The smartphone market has shifted toward the premium, market research firm says

Google recently made it possible for its Tensor Processing Units, or TPUs, to run its Gemini nano AI system. This is a smaller version of its family of large language models which come under the umbrella name Gemini. 

Google is expecting it will launch more advanced versions of Gemini on Android next year, according to Rakowski.

“We’ve placed a lot of bets and have really close collaboration with the research team at [AI lab] DeepMind to make sure Pixel is the best way to showcase and surface what’s coming down the pipe,” Rakowski said. 

“No one knew that LLMs would be the thing. But we expected breakthroughs in the space,” he added. 

Why a supercycle is unlikely

Analysts say a supercycle is unlikely to occur within the next few years as there’s not enough going on in the market in terms of novel features and innovation that will convince people holding their aging smartphones to upgrade. 

Sales are expected to see growth this year, according to IDC, with smartphone shipments expected to climb 2.4% this year to 1.19 billion units in 2024. But that’s coming off a low base, and overall represents lackluster growth for an industry.

Growth is expected to remain stagnant from there in the coming years, with IDC forecasting incremental year-over-year increases of between 2% and 3% from 2025 to 2028.

Consumers remain wary about the prospect of upgrading their smartphones today as the prices for upgrading are still elevated.  

Plus, much of the latest models that are coming out are still only touting incremental improvements on what came before. 

“Much as the potential of AI on smartphones is an exciting prospect, I don’t believe the technology will contribute to a new supercycle for smartphone sales,” Wood told CNBC via email. 

“At best it will help sustain sales and add a little bit of extra interest in smartphones at a time when the hardware is becoming increasingly boring.” 

Today, there’s not enough excitement about smartphones on a broader level to justify a sales boom of the kind many companies are dreaming up. 

That will change in the coming years, according to Jeronimo — but only once artificial intelligence starts becoming useful for consumers. 

“If there’s anything that could make [a supercycle] happen, it would be AI,” Jeronimo said. “But with AI, there’s this question mark of how much the phone will become intelligent.” 

Smartphones today “are not intelligent,” he added. 

“If you see a billboard of the latest Tarantino or ‘Mission Impossible’ movie, what do you do? You need to open an app, book tickets in that app, send texts to your wife, text where she needs to go, go into your calendar app, check when is the best day to go to the movie, and so on.” 

Plenty of companies are working on tech that can do exactly this.

For example, Humane has its AI Pin, a compact, square-shaped device that users can speak with to ask it to do certain tasks like setting reminders. It uses OpenAI’s large language models to do so.  

Another startup, Rabbit, has a similar device. Geely-owned firm Meizu, meanwhile, recently said it’s giving up on making Android smartphones in favor of creating an AI-focused hardware product.

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Google agrees to pay Texas $1.4 billion data privacy settlement

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Google agrees to pay Texas .4 billion data privacy settlement

A Google corporate logo hangs above the entrance to the company’s office at St. John’s Terminal in New York City on March 11, 2025.

Gary Hershorn | Corbis News | Getty Images

Google agreed to pay nearly $1.4 billion to the state of Texas to settle allegations of violating the data privacy rights of state residents, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton said Friday.

Paxton sued Google in 2022 for allegedly unlawfully tracking and collecting the private data of users.

The attorney general said the settlement, which covers allegations in two separate lawsuits against the search engine and app giant, dwarfed all past settlements by other states with Google for similar data privacy violations.

Google’s settlement comes nearly 10 months after Paxton obtained a $1.4 billion settlement for Texas from Meta, the parent company of Facebook and Instagram, to resolve claims of unauthorized use of biometric data by users of those popular social media platforms.

“In Texas, Big Tech is not above the law,” Paxton said in a statement on Friday.

“For years, Google secretly tracked people’s movements, private searches, and even their voiceprints and facial geometry through their products and services. I fought back and won,” said Paxton.

“This $1.375 billion settlement is a major win for Texans’ privacy and tells companies that they will pay for abusing our trust.”

Google spokesman Jose Castaneda said the company did not admit any wrongdoing or liability in the settlement, which involves allegations related to the Chrome browser’s incognito setting, disclosures related to location history on the Google Maps app, and biometric claims related to Google Photo.

Castaneda said Google does not have to make any changes to products in connection with the settlement and that all of the policy changes that the company made in connection with the allegations were previously announced or implemented.

“This settles a raft of old claims, many of which have already been resolved elsewhere, concerning product policies we have long since changed,” Castaneda said.

“We are pleased to put them behind us, and we will continue to build robust privacy controls into our services.”

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Virtual chronic care company Omada Health files for IPO

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Virtual chronic care company Omada Health files for IPO

Omada Health smart devices in use.

Courtesy: Omada Health

Virtual care company Omada Health filed for an IPO on Friday, the latest digital health company that’s signaled its intent to hit the public markets despite a turbulent economy.

Founded in 2012, Omada offers virtual care programs to support patients with chronic conditions like prediabetes, diabetes and hypertension. The company describes its approach as a “between-visit care model” that is complementary to the broader health-care ecosystem, according to its prospectus.

Revenue increased 57% in the first quarter to $55 million, up from $35.1 million during the same period last year, the filing said. The San Francisco-based company generated $169.8 million in revenue during 2024, up 38% from $122.8 million the previous year.

Omada’s net loss narrowed to $9.4 million during its first quarter from $19 million during the same period last year. It reported a net loss of $47.1 million in 2024, compared to a $67.5 million net loss during 2023.

The IPO market has been largely dormant across the tech sector for the past three years, and within digital health, it’s been almost completely dead. After President Donald Trump announced a sweeping tariff policy that plunged U.S. markets into turmoil last month, taking a company public is an even riskier endeavor. Online lender Klarna delayed its long-anticipated IPO, as did ticket marketplace StubHub.

But Omada Health isn’t the first digital health company to file for its public market debut this year. Virtual physical therapy startup Hinge Health filed its prospectus in March, and provided an update with its first-quarter earnings on Monday, a signal to investors that it’s looking to forge ahead.

Omada contracts with employers, and the company said it works with more than 2,000 customers and supports 679,000 members as of March 31. More than 156 million Americans suffer from at least one chronic condition, so there is a significant market opportunity, according to the company’s filing.

In 2022, Omada announced a $192 million funding round that pushed its valuation above $1 billion. U.S. Venture Partners, Andreessen Horowitz and Fidelity’s FMR LLC are the largest outside shareholders in the company, each owning between 9% and 10% of the stock.

“To our prospective shareholders, thank you for learning more about Omada. I invite you join our journey,” Omada co-founder and CEO Sean Duffy said in the filing. “In front of us is a unique chance to build a promising and successful business while truly changing lives.”

WATCH: The IPO market is likely to pick up near Labor Day, says FirstMark’s Rick Heitzmann

The IPO market is likely to pick up near Labor Day, says FirstMark's Rick Heitzmann

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Google would need to shift up to 2,000 employees for antitrust remedies, search head says

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Google would need to shift up to 2,000 employees for antitrust remedies, search head says

Liz Reid, vice president, search, Google speaks during an event in New Delhi on December 19, 2022.

Sajjad Hussain | AFP | Getty Images

Testimony in Google‘s antitrust search remedies trial that wrapped hearings Friday shows how the company is calculating possible changes proposed by the Department of Justice.

Google head of search Liz Reid testified in court Tuesday that the company would need to divert between 1,000 and 2,000 employees, roughly 20% of Google’s search organization, to carry out some of the proposed remedies, a source with knowledge of the proceedings confirmed.

The testimony comes during the final days of the remedies trial, which will determine what penalties should be taken against Google after a judge last year ruled the company has held an illegal monopoly in its core market of internet search.

The DOJ, which filed the original antitrust suit and proposed remedies, asked the judge to force Google to share its data used for generating search results, such as click data. It also asked for the company to remove the use of “compelled syndication,” which refers to the practice of making certain deals with companies to ensure its search engine remains the default choice in browsers and smartphones. 

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Google pays Apple billions of dollars per year to be the default search engine on iPhones. It’s lucrative for Apple and a valuable way for Google to get more search volume and users.

Apple’s SVP of Services Eddy Cue testified Wednesday that Apple chooses to feature Google because it’s “the best search engine.”

The DOJ also proposed the company divest its Chrome browser but that was not included in Reid’s initial calculation, the source confirmed.

Reid on Tuesday said Google’s proprietary “Knowledge Graph” database, which it uses to surface search results, contains more than 500 billion facts, according to the source, and that Google has invested more than $20 billion in engineering costs and content acquisition over more than a decade.

“People ask Google questions they wouldn’t ask anyone else,” she said, according to the source.

Reid echoed Google’s argument that sharing its data would create privacy risks, the source confirmed.

Closing arguments for the search remedies trial will take place May 29th and 30th, followed by the judge’s decision expected in August.

The company faces a separate remedies trial for its advertising tech business, which is scheduled to begin Sept. 22.

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