The leading Chinese smartphone maker Nubia Technology Co. Ltd. has revealed their first wearable watch-like device smartphone Alpha, as the wearable device market provides massive development potential, amongst sluggish growth in the country’s smartphone sector and growing competition from domestic competitors.
The Nubia Alpha, offers features such as a four-inch bendable screen which is developed by Visionox Co. Ltd, a provider of OLED or organic light-emitting diodes, has all the functionality and features of a smartphone but wraps on the wrist just like a smartwatch.
With the price 3,499 yuan ($521), the wearable smartphone supports, text messaging, mobile payments, and voice calls with a connected Bluetooth headset or its built-in speaker. As a smartwatch, the Nubia device works as a fitness tracker and it also can measure heart rate.
The Shenzhen-based company stated it is making a partnership with China Unicom in indorsing the eSIM card, which is directly implanted on the smartphone chip instead of adding it as a separate detachable component to the smartphone. The partners will also carry out collaboration in the 5G smartphone division.
"The liberated communication function is of excessive implication to wearable devices, and will become a significant beginning for the application consequences of another internet of things devices," reported Pan Xuefei, a Senior Analyst, market research firm International Data Corp. She also added that she is confident on the forecasts of the wearable smartphone segment.
"The growth prospective of the smart wearables segment is evidently higher than the traditional smartphone segment, sustained by the development of 5th generation wireless communication technology," reported James Yan, research director, Counterpoint Technology Market Research.
The global market for smart wearable devices raised around 31.4 percent throughout the fourth quarter of 2018, getting a new high of about 59.3 million units, reported by IDC.
"Smartwatches, meanwhile, raised 54.3 percent and accounted for around 29.8 percent of all wearable device deliveries in 2018," stated Ramon Llamas, a research director from IDC.