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Innovation and competition in the smartphone industry: Is there a dominant

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Article  in  Telecommunications Policy · August 2014

DOI: 10.1016/j.telpol.2014.07.002

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Contents lists available at ScienceDirect

Telecommunications Policy
URL: www.elsevier.com/locate/telpol

Innovation and competition in the smartphone industry:

Is there a dominant design?
Grazia Cecere a, Nicoletta Corrocher b,n, Riccardo David Battaglia c
a
Institut Mines Télécom, Télécom Ecole de Management, 9 rue Charles Fourier, 91011 Évry, France and Université Paris Sud 11, RITM, 54
Bouleveard Desgranges, 92260 Sceaux, France
b
CRIOS, Bocconi University, Via Sarfatti 25, 20136 Milan, Italy
c
MEDAlics Research Center for Mediterranean Relations, Via del Torrione 95, 89125 Reggio Calabria, Italy

a r t i c l e i n f o abstract

The mobile phone industry is a very innovative segment within the ICT sector and the
Keywords: smartphone is becoming the standard configuration among the different types of mobile
Smartphones devices. Technical change and new product proliferation have made this industry
Dominant design extremely dynamic, even if market shares are highly concentrated in the hands of very
Product differentiation few companies. The present article investigates whether a dominant design has emerged
in the smartphone industry. In particular, it studies the evolution in hardware components
relying upon an original dataset of product characteristics including all smartphones
launched in the market between 2004 and 2013. Results show that, despite some
convergence in the introduction of vertical innovations, product differentiation still
characterizes the competition among manufacturers and a dominant design has not yet
emerged.
& 2014 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction

Smartphones have emerged in the market as the standard configuration for mobile devices and currently represent the
fastest growing market segment in the telecoms industry. For the first time, in 2013 sales of internet-connected
smartphones exceeded those for more basic handsets.1 Global mobile phone sales grew by 3.6% to 435 million units in
the second quarter of 2013, for the first time smartphones accounted for more than half of the market. Although devices
offering telephony and computing features were developed in the 1970s, it was not until the end of 2006, when the
Blackberry was introduced onto the market by RIM, that the smartphone became a commercially successful product.
In 2007 Apple entered the market by developing the first model of iPhone and soon after (June 2008), Samsung released the
Samsung Instinct, a direct iPhone competitor. Since then competition in the market has been quite harsh among incumbents
and between incumbents and new entrants. The recent legal battle over patents and designs between Apple and Samsung is
a clear signal that smartphone vendors are fiercely competing for leadership in the market, even if Samsung is consolidating
its leadership also thanks to the diffusion of Android operating system.2 Despite the success of the iPhone design in the

n
Corresponding author. Tel.: þ39 02 58363396; fax: þ39 02 58363399.
E-mail address: nicoletta.corrocher@unibocconi.it (N. Corrocher).
1
〈http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/eb8ed76e-0500-11e3-9ffd-00144feab7de.html#ixzz2id9vhg8y〉.
2
In August 2012, the court obliges Samsung to pay Apple just over $1 billion in damages for infringing six of the American firm's software and design
patents.

http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.telpol.2014.07.002
0308-5961/& 2014 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Please cite this article as: Cecere, G., et al. Innovation and competition in the smartphone industry: Is there a dominant
design? Telecommunications Policy (2014), http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.telpol.2014.07.002i
2 G. Cecere et al. / Telecommunications Policy ] (]]]]) ]]]–]]]

market, innovation activity among firms continued and many different versions of smartphones currently exist in the sector.
This contrasts with the conventional wisdom concerning the emergence of a dominant industry design, which predicts that
imitators tend to follow innovators and, if an innovation is commercially successful and widely adopted, it will become the
dominant design because all products in the market will use that specific technology and design features.
The aim of this article is to discuss whether a dominant design has emerged in the market for smartphones by examining
the innovation strategies of companies. In light of this, the paper will also investigate the relationship between innovative
activity and industrial dynamics. In doing so, we will answer two research questions. First, has a dominant design in
smartphone (hardware) characteristics emerged over time? Second, what are the implications of firms' innovation strategies
for industrial dynamics? The empirical analysis relies upon the contribution of Koski and Kretschmer (2007) who discuss
product innovation strategies of firms in the mobile phone industry, looking at the evolution of handset characteristics.
Accordingly, we will distinguish among two types of innovation strategies, i.e., horizontal product innovation and vertical
product innovation. Furthermore, even if our investigation mostly focuses on the hardware side, given the peculiarities of
smartphones, we will also make some consideration on the evolution of software characteristics (operating system) over
time. The remainder of the article is organized as follows. Section 2 reviews the literature on dominant design underlining
the implications for the mobile industry. Section 3 provides evidence on performance of competitors in the market, while
Section 4 investigates whether a dominant design has emerged or instead different smartphone configurations are
continuing to proliferate, and discusses the implications of firms' innovation strategies for industrial dynamics. Section 5
concludes the discussion.

2. The emergence of a dominant design in the market: a review of the literature

The seminal article by Utterback and Abernathy (1975) refers to dominant design as a single architecture3 that establishes
dominance in a product category. In the early stages of market evolution, high technical and market uncertainty results in a
diversity of product designs (Abernathy & Utterback, 1978; Dosi, 1982; Lee, Neal, Pruett, & Thomas 1995; Smith, 1997;
Utterback, 1994). A product category evolves due to the processes of variation, selection, and retention (e.g., Anderson &
Tushman, 1990; Tushman, Anderson, & Murmann, 1998). Technological breakthroughs create rivalry among alternative
designs, resulting in a period of design variation or ferment. The emergence of a dominant design is the transition point
between the periods of variation and selection. The article of David and Greenstein (1990) details the different processes
that lead to the creation of standards, underlying the importance of compatibility in the standardization process.
The definition of dominant design is a specific path along an industry's design architecture, which establishes dominance
among competing design paths. A dominant design usually takes the form of a new product (or novel set of features)
synthesized from individual technological innovations introduced independently in prior product variants (Utterback and
Suaréz, 1993). A dominant design is a product within a product category that gains general acceptance as the standard for
technical features that other market players must follow if they want to acquire significant market share (Utterback, 1994).
Christensen, Suaréz, and Utterback (1998) explain a dominant design as emerging in a product category when one product's
design specifications (consisting of a single feature or a complement of design features) define the product category's
architecture. In this respect, it is possible to argue that in complex products such as computers or smartphones, dominant
designs might emerge in relation to a sub-set of characteristics that are the result of either vertical or horizontal innovations.
Srinivasan, Lilien, and Rangaswamy (2006) add that a particular product design architecture can define the specifications for
the entire product category. Argyres, Bigelow and Nickerson (2013) propose an innovative characterization, according to
which a dominant design appears per se, in the form of a breakthrough that can resist market “shakes” and comprises only
slight and not radical improvements. They define this type of a breakthrough as a “composition desiderata”, because it
represents a collection of desirable features, and they consider the iPhone to be an example of a composition desiderata.
A large strand of empirical studies documents the emergence of dominant designs in various product categories,
including typewriters, televisions, electronic calculators, automobiles (Utterback, 1994), VCRs (Cusumano, Mylonadis, &
Rosenbloom, 1992), cochlear implants (Van de Ven and Garud, 1993), fax machines (Baum, Korn, & Kotha, 1995), cement,
glass, and minicomputers (Anderson & Tushman, 1990). Koski and Kretschmer (2007) used dominant design theoretical
framework to study innovation in the mobile phone design. Van de Kaa, Van den Ende, De Vries, and Van Heck (2011)
reviewed the literature on the topic and identified how format dominances can emerge using five categories: characteristics
of the format supporter, characteristics of the format, format support strategy, other stakeholders, and market
characteristics.
Dominant design is satisfying as long as its technical possibilities are driven by the commercial interests of suppliers,
users, and competitors (Srinivasan et al., 2006; Tushman & Rosenkopf, 1992; Wade, 1995). However, the literature shows
that the dominant design is not always the design that incorporates the best features and performance. Gallagher (2007)
underlines the distinction between dominant designs and industry standards. In particular, standards are driven by the
relative importance of network effects, while dominant designs are architectures with recognized implications for
industries. This implies that standards are often important elements of dominant designs.

3
According to Ulrich (1995), a product architecture is the scheme by which the function of the product is allocated to physical components.

Please cite this article as: Cecere, G., et al. Innovation and competition in the smartphone industry: Is there a dominant
design? Telecommunications Policy (2014), http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.telpol.2014.07.002i
 G. Cecere et al. / Telecommunications Policy ] (]]]]) ]]]–]]] 3

An interesting issue in the context of this article is the relationship between standards and dominant design (Katz &
Shapiro, 1986; Schilling, 1998). In particular, while de jure standards correspond to legal standards, established by public
entities, producers consortia, or cooperating firms, de facto standards coincide with the dominant design, and depend on
market acceptance (Koski and Kretschmer (2007)). The literature shows that several standards can coexist and compete for
years without an individual technology emerging as the dominant design (Schilling, 2002, 2005). Indeed, in some sectors
there are valid examples of this non-emergence, for example, camcorders, supercomputers, video games consoles
(Srinivasan et al., 2006).
The evolution of a technology towards a dominant design is explained by Abernathy and Utterback (1975, 1978) through
the product life cycle model, which discusses the dynamics of product and process innovation within industries, and also
looks at the competitive scenario and the implications for the companies involved. The model identifies three phases in a
product's life: fluid phase (introduction), transition phase and specific phase. At the earliest stage, the market is populated
by a large number of competitors struggling to increase their market share by focusing on technical improvements and
developing new product features while process innovation is negligible or absent. Innovation is stimulated by information
on potential customer needs, and results in different designs coexisting in the market. The transitional phase is
characterized by the emergence of a large variety of products and companies working to improve their internal innovation
and production capacities. The number of competing firms decreases over time because only the best performers are able to
survive, which results in decreasing variety and rivalry shifting to price competition – mostly in the mass market although
some companies will prefer to focus on market niches. The industry becomes more concentrated and the lowest performing
firms are pushed out of the market. Product innovation slows as particular product features are recognized and assumed to
be dominant in the eyes of both the innovators and early imitators (Henderson & Clark, 1990). At this stage, a widely
accepted product line can become the dominant design based on consumers' acceptance of its features: this is the
configuration that will be most imitated and improved on by competitors. As the industry reaches maturity, competition is
about price, and the market becomes concentrated since only a few actors will be able to leverage the economies of scale to
maintain a significant and positive margin. The competitive emphasis is on cost reduction, and as firms try to reduce costs,
the predominant form of innovation is incremental and process innovation rather than product. During this phase, product
designs become standardized and the differences among competing versions of the product are so small as not to constitute
a source of competitive advantage.
The emergence of a dominant design affects the market shares (e.g., Anderson & Tushman, 1990) and survival (e.g., Baum
et al., 1995; Christensen et al., 1998; Suaréz & Utterback, 1995; Tegarden, Hatfield, & Echols, 1999) of firms. Once a dominant
design has emerged in the market, large companies generally compete on price and smaller competitors focus on market
niches. In the specific phase, the number of companies naturally decreases due to exits and acquisition processes, and large
companies are able to maintain their margins through economies of scale and scope. Small companies keen to survive in the
market implement niche strategies and provide target customers with clearly measurable advantages.
In high tech sectors, the emergence of a dominant design (and of a standard) is often caused by the existence of network
effects (Farrell & Saloner, 1985; Katz and Shapiro 1985, 1986, 1994). Network effects occur when the value of adopting a
good/technology increases with the number of other users that join the network. The presence of network effects often
leads to the emergence of lock-in and to the creation of de facto standards, because of technical interrelatedness
(complementarity/modularity) among hardware and software components, system scale economies and quasi irreversibility
of the investments because of high switching costs (David, 1985). Most markets in which network effects exist are “multi-
sided”, as they consist of complementary goods and are mediated by platforms – e.g., operating systems (e.g., Evans, 2003;
Hagiu, 2005). In markets characterized by network effects, there is a bandwagon effect both in the demand and in the
supply sides, as users and producers imitate each other in the adoption of a specific technology because of information
advantages, scale effects, and the availability of complementary goods (Schilling, 2002; Van de Kaa et al., 2011). In terms of
industrial dynamics, the most important implication is that the technology/platform that has an initial advantage over
others tends to increase its advantage, resulting in a winner-takes-all situation. More recently a series of empirical studies
have challenged this conclusion, showing that competition among platforms not necessarily results in a winner-takes-all
type of market, because of issues related to the varying magnitude of network effects, the quality of the competing
platforms and complementary goods, the congestion and the strategic choices and competencies of firms involved (Suaréz,
2005; Afuah, 2013).
If we look at the evolution of mobile phone industry over time, it is possible to claim that in the early stages of the
industry, companies engaged in infrastructural innovations related to the development of mobile communication systems
(from analogue to digital technologies; from 2G to 3G, etc.) (Fuentelsaz, Maicas, & Polo, 2008), which paved the way for
rapid innovation in devices, enabling more user-friendly product characteristics such as lighter weight and longer talk time.
Subsequent innovations were related both to the introduction of a set of additional features (e.g., games, ringtones) by the
major players in the industry, and, more recently, to the development of mobile data services, which have been directly
connected with the development of 3G standards (West and Mace, 2010).
Koski and Kretschmer (2007) look at innovation – i.e., the introduction of new product features – and product
differentiation – i.e., the extent to which existing products differ along a set of characteristics – in the mobile phone sector
before the appearance of smartphones. In particular, they identify two product development strategies used by firms, that is,
vertical (product) innovation and horizontal (product) innovation. The first represents improvements to the product's
technical characteristics and establishes a clear quality ranking for customers. The second entails development of new

Please cite this article as: Cecere, G., et al. Innovation and competition in the smartphone industry: Is there a dominant
design? Telecommunications Policy (2014), http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.telpol.2014.07.002i
4 G. Cecere et al. / Telecommunications Policy ] (]]]]) ]]]–]]]

product characteristics, which results in a significant improvement only for those users with a higher willingness to pay.
Vertical and horizontal innovations do not necessarily become dominant designs. In particular, before the development of
smartphones, vertical innovations in the mobile telephony industry did not lead to a dominant design although some were
significant differentiation attempts (namely, handset talk time, standby time). However, some horizontal innovations have
become part of a dominant design (e.g., weight, speed dialing, vibration alert, SMS, clock and games), while some have
represented attempts to differentiate a product (i.e., PC synchronization, WWW capability, number of ringtones, colours,
alarm clock, calculator, handset size) (Koski & Kretschmer, 2007).
Notably, the role of entrants as the primary source of product innovation does not seem to be confirmed in the mobile
phone sector if innovation is measured merely by the number of new products. As shown by Koski and Kretschmer (2007)
almost 40% of the new handset models launched between 1992 and 2003 were produced by the five biggest cellular phone
manufacturers.

3. The emergence of smartphones and its impact on the mobile communication industry

The emergence of smartphones in the mobile communication sector has been characterized by the introduction of a
series of changes in the technology that has been both intangible – the operating system – and tangible – the hardware
characteristics. In both cases, we have witnessed the emergence of vertical and horizontal innovations, but while
convergence tends to occur in vertical innovations – e.g., wi-fi connectivity, USB, touch screen – product differentiation
still remains quite substantial because of the introduction of different horizontal innovations.
The development of mobile Internet services represents an important milestone in the history of smartphones, as it
constituted the main trigger for the introduction of devices that allowed a full convergence between computing and
communications. Handset producers and system developers in different countries adopted very different strategies to
achieve this goal. In particular, while companies in Europe and in the US concentrated their efforts on the high-end of the
market, commercializing high-price multimedia services over mobile networks, NTT DoCoMo in Japan developed the
i-mode standard, which achieved widespread adoption thanks to the creation of specific content and to the relatively low
commission it took on all mobile transaction (Funk, 2001; West & Mace, 2010).
As soon as more advanced mobile data networks (3G) were also developed in the European countries, handset
manufacturers started experimenting with new devices that could fully exploit the opportunities provided by the mobile
Internet. The first step towards this accomplishment was the development of devices merging personal digital assistants
(PDAs) and mobile phones, which embedded advanced computer capabilities. This was stimulated by the need to sell value
added services through high-priced and high-margin products in order to offset the decreasing revenues from voice
services.
The first attempt to combine telephony, computing, and personalization features was prototyped in 1992 by IBM with
the Angler. An improved version of the Angler – Simon Personal Communicator – was developed in 1993 as the result of a
partnership between IBM and BellSouth Cellular Corp and it was officially launched on 16 August 1994. Simon did not
achieve the predicted success: only 50 000 units were sold. The first smartphone developed in Europe was Nokia 9000, even
if the description “smartphone” was first used by Ericsson in 1997 to explain the revolutionary features of its GS88, also
known as Penelope.4 An important milestone in the evolution of the smartphones was the development of the Symbian joint
venture among Nokia, Psion, Motorola and Ericsson, which aimed at creating an operating system (OS) for mobile phones.
The development of OS has since constituted an essential feature of smarthphones as it manages the hardware and software
resources of the smartphones, allowing the exploitation of value added services by users, which are strictly to Internet
connection.
Since the end of the 1990s, most companies in the market embraced the smartphone concept – Nokia with its
Communicator Line, Motorola with the MPX line, Ericsson with its T series, and later Samsung with its I series. These
innovations were imitated by newcomers such as HTC, RIM, MiTAC International Corp. (under the brands Mio Technology
and Navman) and Kyocera, whose 6035 is considered to be the first commercially successful smartphone. The turning point
in the smartphone industry occurred between 2006 and 2007. At the end of 2006, RIM launched a device for the business
world based on the BlackBerry, which enabled email and instant messaging, and HTML browsing. This was the Curve 8100,
which was aimed exclusively at business people. Apple entered this market segment in the beginning of 2007, when the first
iPhone was officially announced to the world by Steve Jobs. The iPhone disrupted the traditional market concept by
integrating the new phone with the OS, and the browser – Safari – and the iTunes Store for downloading audio and video
content.5 Furthermore, it used a touch screen (instead of a keyboard) with a software-based virtual keyboard (West & Mace,
2010). Even if it was not the first model of smartphone in the market, it soon became a point of reference for all producers in
the coming years in terms of design and user interface. On July 11, 2008, the iPhone 3G was launched, with the simultaneous
opening of the Apple's App Store, which offered more than 500 applications.
While European companies did not immediately respond to Apple's challenge and continued to produce Symbian
smartphones, other competitors started imitating and improving the iPhone concept, Samsung and LG had accumulated

4
〈http://www.techinfo2.com/smartphones-history-reveiew-over-20-years.html〉.
5
Notably, the first iPhone did not allow the development of third-party applications.

Please cite this article as: Cecere, G., et al. Innovation and competition in the smartphone industry: Is there a dominant
design? Telecommunications Policy (2014), http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.telpol.2014.07.002i
 G. Cecere et al. / Telecommunications Policy ] (]]]]) ]]]–]]] 5

competencies in touch screen phones, and of RIM and they had introduced the first touch screen device in 2008. From 2009
on however, competition increased substantially, following the introduction of many devices, which used the Android open
source OS developed by the homonymous company that in 2005 had been bought by Google. The widespread adoption of
this open OS by different mobile device manufacturers – Samsung, HTC, Sony Ericsson – and the development of Google Play
application store allowed this platform to achieve market leadership against its rival iOS. The combined number of apps on
IOS and Android nearly doubled between the end of 2011 (850 000 units) and 2012 (1 400 040 units) (OECD, 2013). The
ecosystem initiated around the iPhone spread quickly across the industry, first in the United States then worldwide. The
development of Android and, later, Windows Mobile further allowed increase of competition between device manufacturers
for smartphones. Since then, manufacturers had greater flexibility as they could use readily available operating systems for
their devices which permit them to focus on specific product and market segment. The development of different OSs
eliminates further barriers to entry and encouraged new players into the market. For example, chipset manufacturers
reacted by developing systems on a chip combined with reference designs which eliminated an important part of research
and development from designing smartphones. This trend has stimulated the entry of new manufacturers and in particular
Chinese firms, such as Huawei, Gionee, Oppo and ZTE, who have gained substantial market shares with low-priced
smartphones, especially in non-OECD economies (OECD, 2013).
The smartphone industry has witnessed substantial growth, driven mostly by the emergence of new actors in the field –
Apple, Samsung – and by technological developments in the hardware and software components. In OECD countries in the
first quarter of 2012, the share of people having a smartphone ranged from 20% (Japan) to 54% (Norway) of individuals. The
share reached more than 50% in Australia, Norway, Sweden and the United Kingdom. On average in the EU15 the share of
individuals equipped with a smartphone increased from 22% in 2009 to 44% at the end of 2011. In 2012, in most OECD
selected countries, Apple (iOS) and Google (Android) were the most used OS. However, other OSs registered a wide presence
in other markets: Symbian (Nokia) has a share in Finland (43%), China (32%), Italy (25%) and Spain (21%). Meanwhile,
Blackberry (RIM), has markets shares in Mexico (25%) and Canada and the United Kingdom (23%) (OECD, 2013).
Table 1 presents the global sales of mobile phone manufacturers in 2012. Many consumers are showing a preference for
more complete devices (i.e., smartphones), but a considerable proportion of the mass market (e.g., older and less well off
people) are reluctant or unable to purchase smartphones for a variety of reasons including their complexity and their high
price. The data shows that Nokia and Samsung are market leaders, but while Nokia was the leader in 2011 – with a market
share of 22.8% – in 2012 Samsung overtook the Finnish company and became the market leader with a market share of
21.6%. Apple ranked third with global sales of 6.9%. It is interesting to note the progress made by the Chinese ZTE and the
decline of RIM.
The evolution in the ranking of mobile phone manufacturers reflects the increasing adoption of smartphones by
consumers. Over the past few years there has been dramatic growth in the number of smartphones worldwide.
Smartphones represented 41% of the handset market in 2011 in Western Europe, up from 11% in 2007 (European
Commission, 2012). A similar trend has occurred in the US, as shown in Fig. 1.
The impressive growth in the number of smartphones worldwide might suggest that a dominant design has emerged in
the industry. Indeed, the above-discussed literature suggests that, as soon as the dominant design has emerged in a sector,
the diffusion of the product takes off. If this is the case, we should observe convergence among producers in relation to the
set of characteristics composing their products. On the other hand, if products continue to be heterogeneous and no
dominant design has emerged in the market, this might be a signal that users may be satisfied with lower levels of network
externalities value (Schilling, 2005) and have heterogeneous preferences towards specific characteristics. The next section
aims precisely at investigating whether a dominant design has emerged in the industry, what are the implications for the
industrial dynamics and what might be the market and strategic reasons behind the evidence.

4. Is there a dominant design in the smartphone market?

This section provides an empirical analysis of the innovation strategies of smartphone producers, with the aim to
investigate whether the industry has seen the emergence of a dominant design, what might be the reasons behind the

Table 1
Top five mobile phone vendors – shipments (millions) and market shares.
Source: IDC (2012).a

Company 2012Units 2012 Market share (%) 2011 Units 2011 Market share (%)

Samsung 406.0 23.4 330.9 19.3

Apple 135.9 7.8 93.1 5.4
Nokia 335.6 19.3 416.9 24.3
ZTE 65.0 3.7 69.5 4.1
LG 55.9 3.2 88.1 5.1
Others 737.5 42.6 716.8 41.8
Total 1735.9 100 1715.3 100

a
http://www.idc.com/getdoc.jsp?containerId=prUS23916413.

Please cite this article as: Cecere, G., et al. Innovation and competition in the smartphone industry: Is there a dominant
design? Telecommunications Policy (2014), http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.telpol.2014.07.002i
6 G. Cecere et al. / Telecommunications Policy ] (]]]]) ]]]–]]]

Fig. 1. Mobile handsets and smartphones forecast.

Source: European Commission (2012).

emergence/non-emergence of a dominant design and what are the implications for the industrial dynamics in the sector.
We focus our analysis on the hardware characteristics, as we can properly investigate the evolution and trends of
innovations. Recalling Van de Kaa et al., 2011, our analysis focuses on the characteristics of the format. The analysis is based
on an original dataset including 1107 different smartphones produced between the beginning of January 2004 and the end
of August 2012. Data were collected from the GSM Arena website (www.gsmarena.com) in October 2012.6 However, since
the website considers an all-inclusive definition of smart devices (i.e., some feature phones are automatically “upgraded” to
a smartphone status), we reduced the initial number of observations according to the following criteria: the presence of an
operative system, a wi-fi system and the possibility of sending and receiving emails. The dataset was built on a global level
and we identified a comprehensive set of variables to capture the characteristics of different products. Thus we consider
only those players involved in world markets.7
Our database includes 52 companies: some of them were already operating in the mobile telecom sector before the
emergence of the smartphones – e.g., Nokia, Motorola, Sony Ericsson – while others come from different sectors and have
only recently entered the industry – e.g., Apple, Samsung, Asus. Fig. 2 shows the number of new smartphones introduced
over time. As highlighted in the figure, innovation has been continuous over time since 2004 companies have competed by
continuously introducing an increasing number of new models.
This pattern is apparently driven by the increase in the number of competitors over time, as shown in Fig. 3. Both Figs. 2
and 3 support the idea that industrial dynamics has been particularly pronounced, as the sector is characterized by a great
heterogeneity of firms and a rapid path of entry of new actors. The heterogeneity of entrants is particular interesting in this
respect, as they come from the mobile manufacturing industry, the PC manufacturing sector and the Internet environment –
e.g., Google. In particular, between 2007 and 2012, the number of competitors in the smartphone industry has increased by
50%, with an average share of new companies over total number of competitors of 19%.
Table 2 shows the top ten companies in terms of number of innovations over time. Samsung, Motorola, HTC and Nokia are
outperformers in the market.8 Samsung has accumulated strong competencies in the mobile communication business over time
well before the emergence of smartphones. Interestingly, ZTE and Huawei have been in the market only since 2009 and have since
then introduced a considerable number of new products. Apple has developed only six products since its entry in 2007, but they
have all been extremely successful and have guaranteed the company a leading position in the market.
Smartphones have substantially evolved and improved over time. As the main objective of the article is to study the
technical innovation in the sector in order to understand whether a dominant design has emerged, we distinguish two types
of product innovations in this context. Vertical innovations, which establish a clear quality ranking in the eyes of all
consumers, refer to the introduction of new additional features (e.g., wi-fi connectivity, touch screen), or to the
improvement of technical characteristics (e.g., weight) that is evaluated in the same way by all consumers. In other words,
vertical innovations imply that all customers consider a product has been improved at the same price (Koski & Kretschmer,
2007). Horizontal innovations refer to the development of innovations that imply the change in existing product
characteristics that do not appeal in the same way to different consumers. For example, a larger screen might increase
the willingness to pay off some consumers but not of all.

6
This website was chosen in line with the analysis by Koski and Kretschmer (2007). Other websites specialized in mobile phone reviews were used to
gather additional information and to check the reliability of the original data – www.telefonino.net, www.phonearena.com, www.amazon.com. Finally,
some data were gathered directly from manufacturers' websites.
7
An exception here is Celkon Mobiles, which covers only one region (India) which is an extremely large market. Otherwise, a world level player is a
producer that offers its devices in several countries.
8
Despite the recent decline, Nokia was until mid-2013 among the top 4 players in the market. https://www.idc.com/getdoc.jsp?containerId ¼ -
prUS24645514 (Available 17 March 2014).

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design? Telecommunications Policy (2014), http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.telpol.2014.07.002i
 G. Cecere et al. / Telecommunications Policy ] (]]]]) ]]]–]]] 7

1200

1000

800

600

400

200

0
2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012

Fig. 2. Number (blue line) and cumulative distribution (red line) of new smartphones over time. (For interpretation of the references to colour in this figure
legend, the reader is referred to the web version of this article.)
Source: Authors' elaboration.

40
35
30
25
20
15
10
5
0
2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012

Fig. 3. Number of competitors over time.

Source: Authors' elaboration.

Table 2
Top innovators in the industry.

Company Number of new products Average number

of new products
per year

Samsung 159 26.5

Motorola 112 14.0
HTC 108 18.0
Nokia 103 14.7
LG 79 15.8
RIM 54 6.8
Sony/Sony Ericsson 49 7.0
ZTE 37 12.3
T-Mobile 35 5.8
Huawei 31 10.3

Product differentiation in the smartphone industry is analysed on the basis of the theoretical framework of products as a
bundle of characteristics, in the spirit of Lancaster (1990), Saviotti (1994) and Frenken, Saviotti, and Trommetter(1999). Our
dataset includes detailed information on the most important product characteristics. Among these, we can identify two
subgroups of characteristics: hardware and software. The most important hardware features in a modern smart device
depend on connectivity (2G, 3G or 4G networks, wi-fi, WLAN, DLNA, infrared port, bluetooth, NFC), chipset, CPU, GPU,
sensors (i.e., accelerometer, proximity, gyroscope), body specifics (length, height, width and weight), writing solution tools
(keyboard versus touch screen), display peculiarities (display type, pixels, inches), protection systems, sound systems (Mp3
reader, loudspeakers), memories (card slot type, included memory, and external memory), USB port, cameras (primary and
secondary photo cameras, video camera), GPS system, and battery. In terms of the software components, a smartphone must
offer a browser, messaging solutions (SMS and MMS, threaded view, predictive text input, email, push email and instant
messaging), an advanced9 operating system, and JAVA system.

9
The dataset was created excluding OSs with poor content and performance, such as the Microsoft products before the 5.0 release and Symbian before
the 5th edition of S60.

Please cite this article as: Cecere, G., et al. Innovation and competition in the smartphone industry: Is there a dominant
design? Telecommunications Policy (2014), http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.telpol.2014.07.002i
8 G. Cecere et al. / Telecommunications Policy ] (]]]]) ]]]–]]]

Table 3
Examples of vertical and horizontal innovations in smartphones.

Hardware components Software components

Horizontal innovations Screen size Games; number of ringtones

Vertical innovations Weight; wi-fi connectivity; multitouch screen, secondary camera Internet browser

Table 3 provides a list of examples of vertical and horizontal innovations that occurred in the smartphone industry. In
order to illustrate the pattern of innovation in the smartphones, we select nine components that refer to the most relevant
hardware characteristics and illustrate at best the development of mobile handset, and examine their evolution over time.
Seven of these features refer to vertical product innovations, while the remaining two refer to horizontal product
innovations.
As far as vertical innovation is concerned, the seven selected features are WEIGHT, WIFI, 3G, MULTITOUCH, MICROUSB,
SECONDARY_CAMERA, 3.5 MM JACK.
First, the weight of the mobile handset has always been extremely important for consumers. We created a continuous
variable WEIGHT whose value ranges from 113 g to 165 g. Second, wireless LAN (local area network, represented by the
variable wi-fi) was evaluated as fundamental for connectivity.10 This feature is present in most products (88.38% of the
sample). We built a dummy variable WIFI that takes the value 1 if the smartphone has a wi-fi connection, and 0 otherwise.
Third, staying connected means that users are able to exploit the online capabilities of their devices when they are far
away from a LAN. For this reason producers are embedding global system networks (i.e., 2G networks, 3G networks and 4G
networks) into their phones. As a proxy of innovativeness in relation to this characteristic we chose the presence of a 3G
network,11 and built a dummy variable 3G that takes the value 1 if the smartphone has 3G connectivity, and 0 otherwise.
Fourth, most smartphones are designed with a touch screen (65.24% of the sample, 91.98% of devices in 2012); fewer and
fewer operate using keyboards only (10.46% of the overall sample and only 1.42% of devices in 2012), while hybrid solutions
(products with keyboard and touch screen) have increased over time. The presence of touch screen is measured through a
dummy variable MULTITOUCH that takes value 1 if this technology is available, and 0 otherwise. This is a key characteristic of
smartphones: in particular Samsung has been accused of copying different types of touch options such as tap to zoom and
multitouch gesture (respectively, patents US7864163 and US7844195).
Fifth, a smartphone is a pocket-hardware which can be connected to a personal computer or other hardware sets to
transfer files. The variable for this feature is USB_type, which indicates the presence of a USB port in the device and the type
of USB port (i.e., miniUSB port, or microUSB port, which is the most innovative). We created a dummy variable MICROUSB that
takes the value 1 if the device has a MICROUSB port,12 and 0 otherwise.
Sixth, the growth of social networking (e.g., Facebook, Twitter) has generated interest among smartphone users in
information and content sharing, including pictures.13 The availability of a camera as a dummy for innovativeness would not
be informative because all the smartphones in the dataset have a camera. However, the availability of a secondary camera is
a meaningful proxy for innovativeness in this aspect: 45.04% of the models in our sample have a secondary camera. The
diffusion of secondary cameras has grown significantly since 2010 (e.g., in 2010 they were only 25.38% of the total, in the
first half of 2012 they represented 66.04% of the total). The dummy variable SECONDARY_CAMERA takes the value 1 if the
smartphone has a secondary camera, and 0 otherwise.
Finally, smart devices allow people to listen to music. They are successful portable music players because they can read
MP3 files. As a proxy for innovativeness, we chose the availability of a 3.5 mm jack,14 measured by the dummy variable
THREEFIVEJACK that takes the value 1 if the feature is present, and 0 otherwise. As these characteristics are defined by dummy
variables, in order to understand whether a dominant design has emerged, we compute the percentage of smartphones
embedding each characteristic over time (see Fig. 4a and b).
The empirical evidence shows that there has been an increase in the number of smartphones which have similar
characteristics, which suggest the emergence of a dominant design in relation to vertical product innovations. In particular,
the percentage of smartphones with touch screen rapidly increased from about 30% in 2007 to about 95% in 2012. As far as
the 3G connection is concerned, in 2006 about 35% of smartphones had this feature, but this percentage rose to 90% in 2012.
The most rapid standardization occurred in relation to the 3.5 mm jack option which characterized less than 10% of
smartphones in 2006 and appeared to be in about 95% in 2012. As far as the variable weight is concerned, we observe a

10
We assume here that each mobile phone enables connectivity with the mobile network.
11
4G network is becoming more widespread and is likely to become a standard. However, our analysis sample includes very few 4G models (5.81% of
the total devices considered) and therefore we decided to evaluate the connectivity with the degree of innovativeness by looking at the existence of 3G
network connectivity.
12
78.37% of the models considered are equipped with microUSB, a superior technology in terms of dimension (it is smaller) and performance. It is the
only USB type between the two types considered that can be used to charge the device; in August 2012, 207 had a microUSB port (i.e., 97.64% of 2012
models).
13
Sharing pictures has become an everyday activity resulting in continuous improvement to the quality and performance of smartphone cameras.
14
A 3.5 mm jack is a connector used to plug in headphones such as those found on music players, computers and most other electronic devices with
audio outputs. It can support stereo and/or microphone, depending on the number of separate connector rings on the jack.

Please cite this article as: Cecere, G., et al. Innovation and competition in the smartphone industry: Is there a dominant
design? Telecommunications Policy (2014), http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.telpol.2014.07.002i
 G. Cecere et al. / Telecommunications Policy ] (]]]]) ]]]–]]] 9

0.9

0.8

0.7 Touch screen

3G
0.6
Secondary camera
0.5
MICROUSB
0.4
WiFi
0.3
THREEFIVEJACK
0.2

0.1

0
2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012

35

30

25

20
Weight
15

10

0
2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012

Fig. 4. (a) Percentage of smartphones with different characteristics (vertical product innovations) and (b) Coefficient of variation of weight (vertical
product innovation).
Sources: Authors' elaboration.

coefficient of variation which is well above 1 but has been declining since 2008, suggesting that the degree of differentiation
in relation to this feature is being reduced.
In order to measure horizontal production innovation, we consider two device characteristics: width and screen size. We
consider width as a proxy for the smartphone dimension and built the variable WIDTH, which ranges from 11.5 cm to 18.1 cm.
By measuring the differences among products in each period along these three characteristics, it is possible to test whether
firms are converging towards similar products. In order to perform most of the functions of a personal computer, a
smartphone requires a relatively large screen (especially if it has a touch screen system). We therefore look at the evolution
of this characteristic by building the variable SIZE, that ranges from 111 to 351 ppi pixel density. The size and the shape of the
smartphones have been at the centre of a legal battle between Samsung and Apple, in particular with the design registration
of the Apple products which refers to the round edge. As these two variables are continuous, we can assess convergence by
measuring the coefficients of variation calculated for each characteristic in each period of time. In particular, the coefficient
of variation is calculated by dividing the standard deviation of a certain characteristic by its mean each year. A coefficient
close to zero indicates that a dominant design is emerging in relation to that particular characteristic. Fig. 5 shows the
evolution of the coefficients of variation over time.
The data show that the coefficients of variation have been quite stable over time since 2006 and well above 0, suggesting
that product differentiation in relation to these characteristics is still quite high. Furthermore, there seems to be a recent
increase in the degree of product differentiation related to screen size and width. Overall, we can conclude that a dominant
design in the horizontal characteristics has not yet emerged.
A final finding concerns the evolution of the OS development. Fig. 6 shows the increasing presence of the Android OS and
a sharp decrease in the number of smartphones with Window OS. Symbian has followed the same path of Window OS and
since 2006 the number of smartphones with Symbian OS has decreased. A very few number of smartphones use the iOS of
Apple, because it is exclusively embedded in the iPhone.
To summarize, our empirical findings show that despite some convergence in vertical innovations – e.g., wi-fi
connectivity, USB, touch screen – a dominant design has not emerged yet in the smartphone industry. In particular, it is
true that the increasing competition combined with continuous technological development has led to the emergence of
dominant designs in the vertical features; however, companies still compete in the horizontal innovations, particularly with
reference to screen size and width. Furthermore, although Android OS is the leading operating systems for smartphones,
competition is still relatively high in that area.

Please cite this article as: Cecere, G., et al. Innovation and competition in the smartphone industry: Is there a dominant
design? Telecommunications Policy (2014), http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.telpol.2014.07.002i
10 G. Cecere et al. / Telecommunications Policy ] (]]]]) ]]]–]]]

30

25

20

Width
15
Screen Size

10

0
2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012

Fig. 5. Coefficients of variation of width and size (horizontal product innovations).

Source: Authors' elaboration.

Fig. 6. The evolution of OS in smartphones.

Source: Authors' elaboration.

5. Firms' strategies and industrial dynamics in the smartphone industry

Why has a dominant design not yet emerged in the smartphone sector? What are the implications of the pattern of
technological innovation for industrial dynamics?
The fact that a dominant design has not yet fully emerged in the sector might be due to different factors. First, the
emergence of the dominant design is related to the extent to which the product category is characterized by high/low
appropriability. In particular, if appropriability is strict in a product category, this leads to local monopolies (independent
market niches) and reduces the probability that a dominant design emerges (Anderson & Tushman, 1990; Frenken et al.,
1999). Smartphones' components are characterized by a high degree of appropriability – as the recent legal battle over
patents and designs between Apple and Samsung shows – and this has to some extent created distinct market niches.
Second, although network effects may lead to the emergence of a dominant design, the markets where network effects exist
may also be characterized by an excess of inertia by consumers who might wait and delay the adoption (Farrell & Saloner,
1986). This is more likely to happen in the case of indirect network effects: the lack of complementary goods may generate
coordination problem and hinder the emergence of a dominant design, against the effect due to the installed base of
customers (Srinivasan, Gary, & Rangaswamy, 2004). Furthermore, as previously mentioned, the varying magnitude of
network effects and the strategic choices and competencies of firms involved can generate (Suaréz, 2005; Afuah, 2013) and
can also hinder the emergence of a winning platform. These features are all present in the smartphone market, whereby two
strong players (Apple and Samsung) have put forward strategies that have over time protected their own design. Finally,
technological uncertainty, which is usually associated with radical innovations, may delay (or impede) the emergence of a
dominant design (Tushman, Anderson & Murmann, 1998), since different variants of the products are developed by
competitors and independent market niches are established, hindering the selection process.
How do innovation strategies of companies reflect in the industrial dynamics? Smartphone affordability has been driven
by manufacturers competing to gain market shares and operators providing customers with innovative tariffs. Table 4
presents the market shares and shipments related to the smartphone market. Worldwide smartphone market vendors
shipped about 712.6 million units in 2012, compared to 494.6 million units in 2011, an increase of 44.1%.
Samsung and Apple together account for more than 74% of the total units shipped, with, respectively, 215.8 and 136.8
million units shipped (the overall total is about 741.6 million units sold in 2012). The two market leaders recorded an
increase in their sales, suggesting that the market is becoming increasingly more concentrated. Nokia and RIM experienced

Please cite this article as: Cecere, G., et al. Innovation and competition in the smartphone industry: Is there a dominant
design? Telecommunications Policy (2014), http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.telpol.2014.07.002i
 G. Cecere et al. / Telecommunications Policy ] (]]]]) ]]]–]]] 11

Table 4
Top five smartphone vendors – shipments (millions) and market shares.
Source: IDC (2012).a

Company 2012 Units 2012 Market share (%) 2011 Units 2011 Market share (%)

Samsung 215.8 39.6 94.2 19.0

Apple 136.8 25.1 93.1 18.8
Nokia 35.1 6.40 77.3 15.6
HTC 32.6 6.0 43.6 8.8
RIM 32.5 6.0 51.1 10.3
Others 260.7 36.5 135.3 27.5
Total 712.6 100 494.6 100

a
http://www.idc.com/getdoc.jsp?containerId=prUS23916413.

Fig. 7. Evolution of market share of operators manufacturers.

Source: IDC (2012).

a substantial drop in sales (  54.6% and 36.4%, respectively), while new (smaller) companies are gaining market shares.
These trends are even more evident when looking at the evolution of market shares between 2008 and 2012 (see Fig. 7).
The patterns of innovation strategies and the evolution of product characteristics as depicted in Section 4 are reflected in
the industrial dynamics. On one hand, the convergence in vertical innovations explains the growing concentration of the
industry, with the two market leaders competing for the mass market on the basis of a series of incremental innovations. On
the other hand, as demand grows, so does the heterogeneity of consumers, which means that horizontal innovation
becomes relevant and allows for the entry and survival of new firms, that might focus on specific market niches. In this
respect, it is remarkable to notice that the lawsuit between Apple and Samsung (and in general among smartphone
producers) concerned not only utility patents, but also, and more importantly, design patents, covering the shape of the
smartphones, as well as graphical user interfaces. In other words, the legal battle regarded both vertical and horizontal
innovations. As a consequence, investigating the characteristics and evolution of lawsuits in the future could be used as an
indicator to understand and evaluate the convergence (or absence of convergence) across product features. Furthermore,
when discussing horizontal innovations in the context of this sector, it is important to consider the role of non-technological
and market innovations. Firms compete also by offering new tariff plans aimed at meeting very heterogeneous consumer
needs (Corrocher & Zirulia, 2010) and the analysis of companies' innovation strategies should therefore also include the
analysis of pricing schemes and trademarks that affect the competition in the industry.
As far as operating systems are concerned, the market is concentrated around five main systems: Android, iOS, Symbian,
BlackBerry OS, and Microsoft Windows Mobile. The heterogeneity of competitors – smartphone producers, big Internet
company (Google) and software producers (Microsoft) – suggests that the operators are quite heterogenous. Some
producers of OS are smartphone producers, for example, Apple and iOS, and Symbian and Nokia. Android has been

Please cite this article as: Cecere, G., et al. Innovation and competition in the smartphone industry: Is there a dominant
design? Telecommunications Policy (2014), http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.telpol.2014.07.002i
12 G. Cecere et al. / Telecommunications Policy ] (]]]]) ]]]–]]]

(%)
100
90 Don't Know
80 Other
70
Microsoft Windows
60
Mobile
50 Symbian (Nokia)
40
Blackberry OS
30
20 iOS (iPhone)

10 Android
0
smartphone
Norway
Australia
United Kingdom
Sweden
Denmark
Spain
New Zealand
United States
Netherlands
Switzerland
Ireland
France
Finland
Austria
Canada
Germany
Italy
Belgium
Mexico
Japan
China
Egypt
Brazil
penetration

Fig. 8. Smartphone and operating systems' penetration in selected countries.

Source: OECD (2013).

Table 5
Top five smartphone operating systems – shipments (millions) and market shares.
Source: IDC (2013).a

Operating system 2012 Units 2012 Market share (%) 2011 Units 2011 Market share (%)

Android 497.1 68.8 243.5 49.2

iOS 135.9 18.8 93.1 18.8
BlackBerry 32.5 4.5 51.1 10.3
Symbian 23.9 3.3 81.5 16.5
Windows Phone/Windows Mobile 17.9 2.5 9.0 1.8
Others 15.1 2.1 16.3 3.3
Total 722.4 100.0 494.5 100.0

a
http://www.idc.com/getdoc.jsp?containerId=prUS23946013.

developed by Google (which is used by a number of vendors such as Samsung and Motorola) and Window phone produced
by Microsoft. Fig. 8 shows the penetration of smartphone and operating system in selected OECD countries.
In the smartphone OS market, Android increased its market share by 104.1% in 2012 (see Table 5) and currently controls
68.8% of the market. Apple's iOS market share also increased (by 46.0%), but the company is far from the leader in terms of
share (18.8%). Quite notably, Microsoft experienced a remarkable increase in its market share, mostly due to the
commitment of Nokia to this platform.
The dynamics of the OS development is directly connected with the evolution of smartphone market. Android appears to
be maintaining its leadership; Apple did not increase its market share, with consumers waiting to buy the new iPhone 5;
BlackBerry and Windows Phone/Windows Mobile are trying to innovate to compete with Android and iOS. These different
operating systems are aimed at attracting new customers and encouraging the purchase of replacements. IDC (2012)
predicts that Android will continue to be the most shipped smartphone operating system over the next five years based on
the growth of Samsung sales and Google's strategy to allow different smartphone producers to use its OS. Despite the
decline in the iOS market share, analysts are positive about the future. BlackBerry OS-powered devices have shown a sharp
decrease in market share in line with sales of the BlackBerry smartphone.

6. Conclusions

This article aimed at examining product innovation strategies of firms in the smartphone industry, in order to see
whether a dominant design has emerged in the market. In doing so, it focused on different types of product innovation
strategies – horizontal and vertical product innovations – and also evaluated the evolution of the operating systems. The
empirical analysis was based upon an original dataset including most smartphones launched since 2004 by firms operating
in several countries or serving a market large enough to make the analysis meaningful. This article adds an interesting
analysis of the development of dominant design in a dynamic sector such as the smartphone industry, by distinguishing
different technological innovations that can generate the creation of dominant design.

Please cite this article as: Cecere, G., et al. Innovation and competition in the smartphone industry: Is there a dominant
design? Telecommunications Policy (2014), http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.telpol.2014.07.002i
 G. Cecere et al. / Telecommunications Policy ] (]]]]) ]]]–]]] 13

The emergence of smartphones has represented an important change in the mobile phone industry, both in terms of
technological innovations and in terms of industrial dynamics. In particular, the most successful companies in the
development of smartphones – Apple and Samsung – were not in the mobile phone industry initially and have taken
advantage of the convergence among mobile communication and information technologies. We investigated the evolution
of smartphones along two dimensions: horizontal and vertical product innovation.
Our empirical analysis shows that the number of new products has remarkably increased over time, also due to the entry of
new companies coming from outside the telecom sector. In terms of technical features, smartphones have considerably improved
over time, with the continuous introduction of new functionalities both on the hardware and on the software side. Looking at the
innovation activity, however, it is quite remarkable to notice that the two market leaders have followed a very different
innovation strategy, with Samsung being the most prolific company in terms of new products launched on the market and Apple
having introduced only six new products. The latter has, however, developed a proprietary OS which has increased the network
effects of adoption over time, creating lock-into the platform for consumers. Therefore, the lack of a clear dominant design in the
sector is driven not only by evolution in the technical characteristics, but more prominently by firms' strategies and conducts.
Our results have important implications for competition (and regulation) in this segment of telecom industry, also in
light of the recent legal battle between the market leaders. Despite the high levels of market concentration and the almost
undisputable leadership of Samsung in the industry, empirical evidence suggests that the smartphone sector is largely
innovative in terms of new product introduction and variety of designs. This pattern is related not only to the evolution in
the technical characteristics of the devices, but also to the changes in the operating systems. In this respect, the existence of
product variety is important for two reasons. First, it allows to maintain competition among heterogeneous manufacturers
in the market that have different innovation strategies and, at the same time, to stimulate collaboration between hardware
manufacturers and software developers with the co-existence of few platforms. Second, it allows to address different
market segments and attract different types of users worldwide. In this respect, also marketing and non-technological
innovations are crucial for firms, as they allow them to create new features and differentiate their products. The evolution of
these devices has important impacts on the recent development of the telecommunication sector which is witnessing an
increasing volume of data and voice traffic going from fixed to mobile networks. As the diffusion of smarthphones (and
tablets) is an important factor driving this shift, analysing the emergence of innovation and product variety in this market
segment is particularly important to understand the future trends of mobile communications.

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Please cite this article as: Cecere, G., et al. Innovation and competition in the smartphone industry: Is there a dominant
design? Telecommunications Policy (2014), http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.telpol.2014.07.002i
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