The development and introduction of more diverse and affordable 5G smartphones will be the main driver accelerating 5G adoption after 2021, with many lead vendors expected to push deeper into the segment, quickly democratizing the 5G experience and establishing a wider ecosystem.
This seismic shift to lower price tiers will result in over 60% of the 549.3 million 5G smartphones shipped in 2022 will be priced below US$600, forecasts global tech market advisory firm, ABI Research in its new whitepaper, The 36 Transformative Technology Stats You Need to Know for 2021.
These lower prices will be underpinned by cheaper components and the continuing availability of more affordable 5G chipset platforms, notably those from Qualcomm, MediaTek, and UNISOC. Conversely, with the expected frantic pace of plunging 5G smartphone prices, it means 5G at the high-end will be squeezed, witnessing rapid saturation while collapsing potential increases in revenue and margins,” David McQueen, 5G Smartphones, Devices, and Wearables Research Director at ABI Research.
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Another 5G Smartphones, Devices, and Wearables trend highlighted in the whitepaper: shipments of connected notebooks will grow to 21.5 million by 2025 at a CAGR of 46%, with a 97% share connected to 5G.
Despite the cellular-connect notebook market witnessing a series of false dawns, the notebook and mobile value chains are on the edge of converging with shipments of “always-on” notebooks expected to grow significantly. This harmonization will be brought about by positioning 5G connectivity as a central pillar in the design of notebooks and PCs, with a focus on long battery life, thin and light designs, offering always-on, always-connected experiences.
“Such a move has been sparked by a shift to ARM-based chips that not only brings deep integration between software and hardware, harnessing innovation and connectivity that has been nurtured for years in smartphones, but also gains in efficiencies and better battery life without sacrificing performance,” says McQueen. Companies such as Qualcomm, Intel, MediaTek, Samsung, Huawei, and Apple are all at the forefront of pursuing this strategy, with many connected notebook models expected to appear starting in 2022.
About the white paper, Stuart Carlaw, ABI Research’s Chief Research Officer says, “We have selected, from among the many millions of data points ABI Research creates each year, to focus on some enlightening data points that matter in the year ahead. Aspects like Tiny Machine Learning (TinyML), private cellular networks, Open Radio Access Network (RAN), blockchain, smart manufacturing platforms, and even connected cows point to how technology advancements are allowing our physical world to be better connected, managed, and efficient. The forecasts presented in this paper may be easy to dismiss but are very important directional indicators of the technology-enabled world of the future.”