Where would the smartphone be 10 years down the line?

The smartphone of the futurewhatever the devicewill be one touch-point of many. And each person will have an account, which is unique. People ask: Will the phone be the centre of the future or the smart display? And my answer is its the account which lives in the cloud and functions on the cloud, and is, therefore, your connection for interaction with everything. So, your personal supercomputer and your super assistant is that account functionality in combination with the cloud.

What about privacy?

Everything will be cloud-based. Security will also be cloud-based or cloud-centric. It [security] would be a challenge, but privacy would be the biggest challenge, as you have so many touch points and incredible computing power. It is not just a challenge for the smartphone industry but also for the entire technology or mobile Internet industry of connectivity. If we look at, for example, in China, transactions fora store or a hotel can be done through a smartphone by using facial recognition. That is an example of something that is not even device-based, but actually cloud database-powered face recognition. And then in the here and now, the future will only consist of more of such things. So, privacy gets the highest priority.

There are no set standards for 5G technology among companies and countries. Is that a challenge?

I believe working out a common standard would be inevitable, even though I am not an expert in network technology.

How will you develop the 5G ecosystem? Whats your plan for India in light of the current situation in the telecom sector?

To answer the second question first, what we see in India is that the carriers, the government, and the relationship, and what is evolving, it is behind some markets. But globally, 5G transition is moving forward; for example, at the flagship level for chipset offerings, there arent any that are not 5G. So, this sort of transition is going to be brought forward and I believe India would be able to follow quickly. We saw this in 2014 when we were starting in the Indian market with 4G and the quick transition into 4G in India. Regarding the 5G ecosystem, One Plus is not just looking to build an ecosystem, but is focussing on the foundation of a seamlessly connected user experience; it is really about getting the platform right for whatever we do and whatever we create.

How will the consumption of data change because of 5G? How will data change the behaviour of users?

I see data consumption in the next five years going up significantly. With the realisation of seamless connectivity, peoples behaviour, and their consciousness of data consumption will decline or perhaps move quickly to the point of something that people dont even care about. Seamless connectivity will also enable data consumption to perhaps be 10-100 times of what it is now in the next five years. Theres not so much a specific consciousness of the fact that you are consuming so much data. Its just the reality of the way things will be.

So consuming data would become part of the system?

Indeed. Because people wont have that focus or care or concern for data; perhaps children born in 2020 would never know what data or the concept of data consumption actually is.

Why should a customer move to 5G?

I see it as the human pursuit of speedsomething thats unending. Many think 4G LTE speed is good enough. But there will be a transition when the current speeds wont be enough. For instance, we could compare 4G LTE to what was available 10years ago: services available now [say, video streaming on mobile phones] versus the technology available then. As a joke, you can say it will make people lazy. But the thing is, it [5G] will allow people to focus on what matters most to them. A whole lot of things can be handled by the super assistant we talked about. For example, a business trip. The whole process of planning, tickets, check-ins, locations, and timeall of that can be taken care of by it. Life for humanity will be more convenient.

What are the industries 5G would disrupt? Or will it disrupt the way a human functions?

From my perspective, its definitely impacting everything. We can already see that with the transition to 4G, the number of industries impacted was significant. Some of the reports looking at the impact of 5G across industries are also showcasing what the technology would become in 5-10 years.

You recently completed six years in India. How has the countrys smartphone market changed, and how have you helped change it?

Six years ago, when we came to India, there were many brands in the marketboth local and international. But if we look at the number of brands now, it is fewer. In 2014, the average price of a device sold was under $100, from what I remember. And 4G was not very well dispersed. For most new players, the takeaway was to launch a product that hits that price point of $100 or less, maybe around 5,000. But we were launching a product that was already over 20,000. People would ask: Who are you selling that to? The results show demand, from the users perspective, for that type of product was there, and will continue to be there. Six years later weve seen tremendous change. Brands are much more focussed and the average quality of the offering is much higher. If you look at our contribution to the industry, it would be around quality standards. By consistently following this higher standard of quality, we created confidence in the industry that with a quality product, users will know, and understand, and rally behind that product.

(This interview was originally published in the March 2020 issue of the magazine.)

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Pete Lau on the wonders of 5G - Fortune India