'Cellphone energy gap is widening'

BOSTON, USA: Studying the battery budget in cellphones, the Strategy Analytics Handset Component Technologies service report, “Cell Phone Energy Gap: Desperately Seeking Solutions,” reveals that improvements in component power consumption and battery chemistry will not be sufficient to offset the growth in feature penetration and application usage.

The report predicts that web browsing, navigation and social networking will see the biggest increase, growing from a combined 9 percent of the battery budget in 2008 to 30 percent by 2014. The report details in-depth analysis of the battery budget in smart phones, feature phones and basic phones.

Battery capacity in cell phones has increased by only 4 percent per year in the past three years, which falls far short of what is needed. Strategy Analytics also predicts that upcoming Silver Zinc and Hydrogen Fuel Cell solutions are most likely to replace Lithium Ion in the future. This study also reveals that the high-growth smart phone market is putting the greatest pressure on the battery budget as smart phone users tend to have the highest usage patterns and access to more applications.

Stuart Robinson, Director of the Strategy Analytics Handset Component Technologies service, commented, “Strategy Analytics predicts a 4.8 percent per year reduction in the Average Time Between Charges (ATBC) in cellphones between now and 2015. Much of this is due to the growing penetration of features like web browsing, navigation and social networking. Speed-charging solutions using ultra-capacitors will not increase the total energy stored in cellphone batteries, but may ease the pain associated with having to recharge more often.”

Sravan Kundojjala, Analyst, adds, “Strategy Analytics believes that emerging technologies, like Fuel Cells, Symmetric Multi-Processing (SMP), small semiconductor process nodes and bistable displays, could eventually have a positive impact on the cell phone battery budget.”