Technology Prediction for Acquiring a Must-Have Mobile Device for Military Communication Infrastructure

The smartphone is a must-have mobile device for the military forces to accomplish critical missions and protect critical infrastructures. This paper explores the applicability of a technology prediction methodology to manage technological obsolescence while pursuing the acquisition of advanced commercial technology for military use. It reviews the Technology Forecasting using Data Envelopment Analysis (TFDEA) methodology and applies an author-written Stata program for smartphone technology forecasting using TFDEA. We analyzed smartphone launch data from 2005 to 2020 to predict the adoption of smartphone technology and discuss the pace of technological change. The study identifies that the market is undergoing reorganization as new smartphone models expand the market and increase their technical performance. The average rate of technological change, the efficiency change, and the technology change were 1.079, 1.004, and 1.011 each, respectively, which means that the technology progressed over the period. When dividing before and after 2017, technological change and efficiency change generally regressed except for Huawei, Xiaomi, and Oppo. This means that Chinese smartphones are expanding the global market in all directions and the technology is reaching maturity and market competition is accelerating.