The demand of smartphones ( iPhone, Android based Nexus One, HTC, etc ) are increasing as people are now able to connect to the internet at anytime any place without the requirement of a PC. The change in lifestyle could potentially lead the world into another new era of technology. With the global economies still healing from the sub prime crisis in 2007, this new era could lead the second leg of global economy recovery and at the same time prevent a possible double dip in recession.
From the production of the smartphones to eventual users of those will no doubt beneficial to companies. From the R&D prospective, companies like Broadcomm, Qualcomm and Marvell ( all US companies ) creating the technology with their patented chipset solution. Manufacturing those smart phones will involve foundry companies like TSMC ( Taiwan ), UMC ( Taiwan ) and Chartered Semiconductor ( Singapore ), and turnkey services providers like Stats ChipPac ( Singapore ), Venture Corp ( Singapore ) and Flextronic ( US ). Branding companies like Apple ( US ), Nokia ( Finland ), Sony Ecrisson ( Japan/Sweden ), Motorola ( US ), Samsung ( South Korea ), HTC ( Taiwan ), Google ( US ), etc will be involved in selling to the consumers. Lastly, the telco companies like China Mobile ( China ), PCCW ( Hong Kong ), SingTel ( Singapore ), StarHub ( Singapore ), NTT DoCoMo ( Japan ), etc will complete the stages by providing connection services for the smartphones to the consumers.
In Singapore with the delisting of Chartered Semiconductor, investors could only focus on the 2 turnkey services provider Stats ChipPac ( with offices in US, China, Taiwan and South Korea ) and Venture Corp ( with offices in US, China and Europe ) and the telcos SingTel, StarHub and M1 to ride on the potential growth on this new era of technology. For investors which want exposure to China market for this technology trend, Sinotel would be appropriate candidate.