The most popular smartphone in China

In fact, the most popular manufacturer of smartphones in China is Samsung. One of the principle reasons is that Samsung makes phones with screens large enough to work well with the Chinese language character set when presented on web sites.

Anyone familiar with Chinese web sites will know that they are crammed with text - take HAO123.com for instance, a hugely successful information portal. The reason is fairly straightforward. If you want to type a phrase into a text box on a portal like this, you would need to either use the Chinese drop down character set menu or spell the Chinese word phonetically using Latin characters. As a result, it’s much easier to simply click on one of the blocks of text and follow the hyperlink directly to where you want to go.

As Smartphones become more used in engineering this begins to have an impact. If you want to reach China using your new SCADA or DCS (Distributed Control System) monitoring app for instance, it will need to have an Android version available suitable for a Samsung phone.

Standards are as important as standard practice. Just as Samsung dominates Asia’s mobile phone market, so CC-Link leads the industrial networking arena, unlike Western Europe, something manufacturers looking to penetrate the Asian market need to be aware of.

One medium that is ideal for Smartphones and is functional irrespective of character set is video. CLPA Europe has finalised a series of videos about the latest challenges faced by the automation industry. In the clips, available on the organisation's YouTube channel, leading figures from some of the most recognisable automation brands in the world - including Renesas, Balluff and Hilscher - offer their views on innovative technologies and the best way for OEMs to reach the Asian market.