GSMA与ITU高管敦促行动：AI推高存储成本冲击廉价手机普及

MWC26 DOHA, QATAR : The heads of the GSMA and ITU outlined the need for partnerships and continued action to address affordability factors in the face of rising smartphone component costs, and other issues keeping people offline. Speaking during a session to open the event, which is co-located with the ITU’s Plenipotentiary Conference 2026, GSMA director general Vivek Badrinath ( pictured, left ) said in terms of a long-held industry ambition to get a sub-$50 smartphone on the market “this year has been bad”. Noting while there had at one point been “line of sight to a $50 phone,” due to escalating memory costs “that’s gone out of the window”. “RAM prices due to AI demand simply doubled, and then added another 40% over the last year,” he added, pointing to other ways to make devices more accessible including reducing taxes on entry-level smartphones. Badrinath added there was also a need to up efforts on “circularity to make sure that more phones can come back and flow into the market, and we need to continue to work on financing and financing tools to help people to access their first smartphones”. ITU secretary-general Doreen Bogdan-Martin ( pictured, right ) emphasised there was a need to align as “an ecosystem” on inclusion, adding “we need to make sure the next wave of technology development doesn’t create a new digital divide”. Discussing the usage gap, people who are covered by a mobile signal but don’t access services, she added “we need to tackle that affordability piece,” citing handset cost but also the price of data in some countries. Safety and trust Beyond price, the executives raised several other elements deemed to be making some reluctant to be online. “Safety and trust issues are keeping people offline that could normally be online,” Bogdan-Martin said, adding “there was recently a study across 31 countries that showed that more than 60% of girls had suffered online harassment” as an example. On trust, Badrinath noted this was a “big area of commitment for our industry, because when you have more and more frauds and scams, the risk perceived of owning a smartphone becomes an impediment”. “I think in the dialogue between regulators and the industry it’s important to have a holistic view,” he added. “None of us holds the answer: the social networks don’t hold it, the telcos don’t hold it and the regulators don’t hold it, but all together we can protect our citizens from these risks”. Both executives also noted the need for up-skilling for digital technology and specifically for AI, with a need to ensure that is also inclusive so as not to create a new divide. The full session is available on replay here , where Badrinath and Bogdan-Martin discuss industry and regulatory priorities as well as the advantage of holding their respective events in close proximity. The post GSMA, ITU chiefs urge action on inclusion barriers appeared first on Mobile World Live .