The growth of the smartphone sales is decreasing because main markets are mature and no significantinnovation were introduced with the latest products offered by Samsung, LG, HTC, Sony, Huawei and allthe other competitors. This way, only few people change their device: personal need are fully satisfiedby the old one. This is clear to all of us. We all are waiting for long life batteries, that is probably themost important request still not satisfied by producer.. because outside their control with the exceptionof Samsung that produces also batteries.

In the past the first big option introduced by hardware vendors was the GPS component. This way wehad a single device covering both standard smartphone features and a portable and personal navigator.A really interesting feature still under development from the software side. But this is software and nothardware..

The second ‐ and currently last ‐ success component introduced was the camera. Samsung andcompetitors are continuously improving their implementation with a very significant result in terms ofquality of images. But there is a physical limit related to the thickness of smartphones so it very hardimagine optical zooms lenses integrated into such devices.

Samsung ‐ and others ‐ are still working on flexible displays and in my opinion the first attempts will benot so cheap and user friendly to be considered a success in terms of revenue.

LG introduced external modules with their flagship G5 but it was not a winning product : expensive andessentially not covering end user needs. But the main defect was that they were specific to LG and G5 inparticular . What would happen if the user had decided to replace the smartphone? The add‐ons wouldbe unusable! End users may be interested in tech news but can not be treated like an idiot .. entirelly.

And now? The next big thing in smartphones will be.. external modules. But differently from LG andtheir G5 they will be compatible with all the smartphones available on the market, also the onesproduced by competitors. Smartphones will become a commodity and accessories will be theopportunity to generate big profits. This will be positive for users but probably not for smartphonevendors. Devices covering specific features will be produced also by manufacturers not part of thesmartphone market or currently not covering a strong position.

Probably the first module will be related to the cameras. Thismarket is rapidly evolving. Compact cameras are competing withlow level DSLR : they offer an acceptable photo quality with theexception of depth of field. Mirrorless ‐ also full frame ‐ can

compete also with professional DSRL : in fact they can use the same high quality lenses. But we arespeaking about smartphones not compact, mirrorless or DSRL cameras. Not true. Imagine an externalstandard module offering high quality zoom lenses : it will cover the compact cameras market. If themodule will offer the opportunity to attach the lenses designed for mirrorless you will have both apowerful smartphone and an high quality camera. More, you will reuse or buy your preferred lenses.this may be the future? No, it's present time even if this is still a niche. Sony few weeks ago introducedits first camera dedicated to smartphones with interchangeable lenses. Canon, Nikon and the others willfollow. They are not players part of the smartphone market and strongest competitors are currentlySony ‐ with a great experience with cameras ‐ and Samsung that is competing in the mid level camerasmarket.

This is only one of the possible scenarios and it is my personal opinion on the future of smartphones inthe coming years.