Asian mobile telecom giants Huawei, LG and HTC on Sunday launched a new generation of ultra-rapid smartphones, in a race to catch up with market leaders Apple and Samsung.
China's Huawei touted its new Ascend D as the "world's fastest smartphone", as it boasts a quad core processor, double that of other smartphones which are using dual core at the moment, making them at least twice as rapid.
"We are proud to ... introduce a world first at the 2012 Mobile World Congress with the Ascend D quad, the fastest smartphone," said Richard Yu, Huawei Device chairman, on the eve of the industry's biggest fair in Barcelona.
"We've listened to people's top demands from smartphones: speed, long battery life, high quality visual and audio capabilities and a compact lightweight handset," said Yu, saying that the phone met those requirements.
The new handset marks a major push by the Chinese maker to market its brand in the high-end smartphone market.
"The advent of the smartphone has changed the industry significantly. Five years ago, if you say that you're using an Apple phone, that's hard to imagine," Huawei Device's chief marketing officer Shao Yang told AFP.
"Two years ago, Samsung phones were not as successful as they are now. But through its Galaxy series, it has satisfied consumers' demand," he said.
He noted that while the regular mobile phone's market had been fully exploited, there was a large market opportunity for the smartphone.
"With the transformation of the smartphone market, we see an opportunity," he said.
World wide smartphone sales grew 53.5 percent in 2011, and made up 34 percent of all mobile handsets sold in the year, said Informa Telecoms and Media research agency.
It estimated that over a billion people would own a smartphone by 2013, underlining the massive market potential.
LG, the world's third biggest mobile phone maker, also sought to get a firmer grip on the smartphone market with a new quad core phone, the Optimus 4xHD.
Daniel Hernandez, the group's marketing director for Europe, said that "there is nothing more powerful (than the model) on the market at the moment."
He added that the colours were more natural on the screen, thanks to the rapid processor.
Taiwanese giant HTC meanwhile presented its new HTC One series, which its chief executive Peter Chou described as a "speed and performance beast."
Besides selling its quad core capabilities, Chou sought to differentiate it from competitors by highlighting the rapid camera capabilities.
"Our goal is to give you a camera that is so good, that has a power of a true digital camera on your phone," said Chou, noting that the second most used functions on a telephone these days was taking photos.
The phone autofocuses in 0.2 seconds -- "literally faster than a blink of an eye," and offers continuous shooting.
It also plugs into a television's HDMI port, allowing the photos or videos to be viewed on a big screen.
Japanese group Sony meanwhile played up its gaming expertise as it presented the first phones branded under its name, rather than Sony Ericsson, since it bought over the share of the Swedish phone maker.
"This is our first congress for Sony Mobile Communications and it's a new exciting chapter for our company," said Bert Nordberg, chief executive of the mobile phone division of Sony, as he launched two phones under its Xperia series.
The group's upcoming chief executive Kazuo Hirai said the phone brand would build on the group's strengths in the media -- through the studio Sony Pictures and Sony Music, as well as gaming -- through Playstation.
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