The annual gathering that is The Mobile World Congress (MWC) takes place every year in gorgeous Barcelona, Spain the last week of February. This year being held from February 25 to 28, MWC will no doubt see the announcement of new smartphones and smartphone technologies, and Intel has already made a pre-announcement that they will be debuting new graphics and processor technologies at the event. The company said in a recent press release that the focus during MWC would be to announce their new dual core processor and dual graphics platforms geared towards the Android OS.
At the end of last year and beginning 2013, executives for Intel began hinting at the company’s plans to build their own smartphones in the near future. The products would not bear an Intel logo, and would instead be sold to current smartphone manufacturers with more recognizable smartphone brand names. No word if any Intel smartphones will see the light of day during MWC, but with the company’s well-deserved and well-respected reputation as a leader in processors and chips manufacturing, anticipation is already building for the debut of this new technology.
Intel did not disclose which Android smartphones would be used to display their new dual core, dual graphics platform, but they did reveal that they would also demonstrate “OEM and service provider-supported devices” based on their new Intel AtomTM Z2420 platform. Building their name in the personal computer marketplace, Intel came late to the mobile processor market. The company is now wisely focusing more energy on mobile products in general, and smartphones in particular, to help counter-punch week revenues from their Wintel PC division.
Getting a stronger toe-hold in the smartphone marketplace would also help them compete with rival Qualcomm. Also mentioning that they wanted to gain more traction in emerging markets in 2013, a new Atom processor named Lexington was announced earlier this year. That processor will focus on smartphones sold in emerging market places such as Africa, China, India and Latin America.
The company moved forward into the Africa just late last week, partnering with Kenyan wireless operator Yolo, who specializes in Android powered devices. Mike Bell is the vice president for Intel’s Mobile and Communications Group, and he stated that Southeast Asia and the markets listed above offer significant growth possibilities for his company’s smartphone technology. Intel also recently partnered with Acer to position themselves for a smooth transition into the Thailand smartphone marketplace. Their Merrifield processor is targeted to smartphones and will make an appearance at MWC, and Intel has also begun producing its own LTE/4G baseband chip.
