Forecast: 5G smartphones over 50% of sales revenue by 2025
August 16, 2021
A study by Juniper Research has found that 5G-compatible smartphones will account for over 50 per cent of smartphone sales revenue by 2025; rising to $337 billion from $108 billion in 2021.
The study urges mobile handset vendors to ensure hardware maximises the benefits of future mobile cloud computing solutions. Mobile cloud computing enables service providers to offload intensive tasks to the cloud; freeing on-device resources for essential device processes.
The research predicts that successful handset vendors will include radios that are able to process large bandwidths and ultra-low latency to ensure that handset users are able to use cloud computing services efficiently, whilst remaining price competitive.
Juniper Research anticipates that increasing the availability of lower-tier 5G smartphones is crucial to propagate 5G handset adoption in emerging markets. It predicts that by 2025, global Android smartphone prices will be 65 per cent lower than global iOS smartphone prices. It also highlights that this lower average cost of Android devices will lead to Android dominating 5G handset markets in regions such as Latin America.
Conversely, the Juniper Research expects that the enduring popularity of iOS devices in developed markets will make 40 per cent of global 5G smartphone revenue attributable to North America and Europe by 2025.
The report warns that long-term 5G smartphone shipment revenue will be limited by impending ‘right-to-repair’ legislation in North America and Europe, as more handset users choose to repair older models rather than upgrading to newer generation devices.
Research author Adam Wears explained: “The effect of these laws will not be felt initially, as consumers adopt 5G smartphones to leverage the high speeds and reduced latency of 5G networks. Hardware vendors must use this opportunity to build out new device capabilities to encourage consumers to continue regularly upgrading and avoid churn to competitors.”