Artificial Life (ALIF) mobile content provider with vision

The smartphone market is growing at an annual clip of 50%, according to IDC, and is expected to continue robust growth for many years to come. A whopping 118.3 million smartphones shipped in the first six months of 2010, reflecting a 54% increase from the 76.8 million units that were sold in the first half of last year. Analysts at ABI Research project smartphone sales to double from about 200 million units this year to more than 400 million units in 2014, which indicates forecasted compound annual growth of 20% for the next four years.

ABI’s forecast of growth in the smartphone market is probably on the low side. Consider that industry specialists at Frost & Sullivan expect that close to 500 million smartphones will be sold in Asia-Pacific alone in the year 2015. That would easily put worldwide annual sales in the ballpark of 700 – 800 million.

The point is that as smartphones get smarter and more affordable, and 4G service expands, we expect to see smartphones taking the place of PCs for a growing number of consumers. And this trend may already be emerging (especially in emerging markets) as evidenced by the relative expected growth rates in the years ahead and by deals like the Intel/Infineon one cited above.

So it’s possible that a few years down the road, many consumers will forgo even owning a PC and will rely on a smartphone as their primary computer instead.

With all this talk of smartphone growth, I figure we should continue a bit with this (for once) positive tone and talk briefly about healthcare in the smartphone market.

Healthcare is a niche market with growth potential for Smartphones, according to healthcare market research publisher Kalorama Information. The firm cites high rates of physician use of Smartphones and PDAs and available applications among many factors making healthcare ideal for Smartphone sales. In 2009, PDAs and Smartphones for healthcare applications were worth about $2.6 billion combined—according to Kalorama’s recently released report, “Handhelds in Healthcare: The World Market for PDAs, Tablet PCs, Handheld Monitors & Scanners.”

Kalorama notes that the industry is no stranger to portability. While healthcare is just a fraction of total Smartphone and PDA sales, just about five percent of the total market, Kalorama predicts that healthcare is one of the growth areas – particularly for Smartphones, because of their ability to combine communication with alerts, references and records.

“Healthcare is a mobile profession and lends itself to these devices,” according to Bruce Carlson, Publisher of Kalorama Information. “They provide a wide range of conveniences and workflow efficiencies which can’t be achieved with traditional notepads and pocket drug references.”

The firm notes that several wireless companies have tailored their product offerings to the needs of the healthcare industry and expects this to continue.

This year Artificial Life (ALIF) introduced GluCoMo. GluCoMo is a mobile telemedicine and healthcare solution allowing diabetics, caregivers, doctors, and hospitals to share and communicate through mobile mediums such as smartphones, tablets, netbooks and other mobile internet devices. With the facilitation of mobile data sharing and smart back-end processes, the goals are to promote better personal diabetes management habits, increase peace of mind for friends, families and caregivers, and enable remote and real time monitoring and management of patients by doctors and hospitals for advancement in healthcare services and a reduction in administration costs.

GluCoMo is a customized mobile device front-end client and portal as well as a custom back-end infrastructure supported by Artificial Life's m-commerce solution OPUS-M. http://www.glucomo.com/site/en/home

The recent stock price of $0.95 doesn’t reflect the enormous potential Artificial Life (ALIF) has in this niche market. With an EPS-projection between $0.25-$0.30 this year there is enough upside potential for this stock.

POSITION: LONG