Review of 5G terminals in 2020: The smartphone market is facing major changes, and more forms are expected

If 2019 is the first year of 5G commercialization, then 2020 will be the first year of 5G scale expansion. As 5G commercial networks are blossoming around the world, 5G is enabling more abundant terminals and use cases, expanding 5G applications from smartphones to thousands of industries and accelerating the digital transformation of industries.

In order to better review the gratifying achievements made by the industry in the first year of 5G scale expansion and promote the further accelerated development of 5G in the future, as a top professional media in the industry with millions of precise users, C114 plans to launch a large-scale planned special report "2020-5G Expansion Year", conduct a year-end review of the 5G industry in the first year of expansion, and work together to promote the rapid and high-quality development of the 5G industry.

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The first year of 5G's large-scale expansion is also a year in which the world is experiencing major changes unseen in a century.

Due to the global spread of the COVID-19 pandemic and potential risks such as technological decoupling faced by the technology industry, although the evolution to 5G has become the general trend of technological development in the smart terminal industry in 2020, it still faces many uncertainties in the market structure and future technological innovation.

Market View: Capacity Declines, Manufacturers Struggle

Judging from the global smartphone market shipments and the market performance of major manufacturers, the smartphone market in 2020 has experienced too many "black swan" events.

Affected by the negative impact of the epidemic, global smartphone shipments continued to decline in 2020. According to data released by market research firm IDC, global smartphone shipments fell 11.7% year-on-year in the first quarter of 2020, and fell 16.0% year-on-year in the second quarter. Both Q1 and Q2 set the largest year-on-year declines in history; the third quarter was still in a downward state, down 1.3% year-on-year. It is expected that the overall sales volume of the global smartphone market will decline by 2.3% in 2020.

Judging from the performance of major mobile phone manufacturers, data from the global smartphone market third quarter 2020 tracking report released by market research firm Canalys shows that the top five manufacturers in the global smartphone market in the third quarter of 2020 are: Samsung, Huawei, Xiaomi, Apple, and vivo.

• Samsung's shipments in Q3 were 80.2 million units, a year-on-year increase of 2%, with a market share of 23%, ranking first.
• Huawei's shipments in Q3 were 51.7 million units, down 23% year-on-year, with a market share of 14.9%, ranking second.
• Xiaomi's shipments in Q3 reached 47.1 million units, a year-on-year increase of 45%, with a market share of 13.5%, ranking third for the first time.
• Apple's shipments in Q3 were 43.2 million units, down 1% year-on-year, with a market share of 12.4%, ranking fourth.
• vivoQ3 shipments reached 31.8 million units, up 6% year-on-year, with a market share of 9.1, ranking fifth.

From the data, we can see that not only the overall market capacity has been negatively affected by the epidemic, but some manufacturers have also encountered "black swan" events. For example, due to the continued suppression by the United States, the chip supply has been cut off. Huawei, which originally hoped to counterattack Samsung throughout the year, has seen a sharp decline in shipments that has never been seen in many years. At a difficult time when industrial technology elements are unsustainable and consumer business is under great pressure, Huawei reluctantly decided to sell the assets of its Internet mobile phone brand Honor business as a whole. Huawei does not own any shares in Honor after the delivery, nor does it participate in management and decision-making.

Looking at the trend: 5G mobile phones are in vogue, and prices continue to fall

In the first year of the highly anticipated 5G large-scale expansion, the entire smartphone industry is facing unprecedented challenges and uncertainties under the impact of the global epidemic.

Although the industry's road ahead is full of ups and downs, some positive trends still give people hope. For example, in the first year of 5G scale expansion, smartphones are still the most widely used terminal form of 5G at this stage. In 2020, almost all new products released by the world's leading mobile phone manufacturers are 5G mobile phones, and the price range has expanded from high-end models to mid-range and even thousand-yuan models.

For example, in the past 2020, Huawei launched the P40 series and Mate40 series high-end 5G mobile phones; Apple also released high-end 5G products such as iPhone 12 and iPhone 12 Pro; Samsung released high-end 5G mobile phones such as Galaxy Note20 and Galaxy Z Fold2; Xiaomi released Xiaomi 10 at the beginning of the year, and at the end of the year, it took the lead in launching Snapdragon 888 and released high-end flagships such as Xiaomi 11; OPPO released Reno5 Pro+, and vivo released high-end 5G mobile phones such as X60 series.

In addition to the high-end flagship products that have all launched 5G phones, major mobile phone manufacturers have also introduced 5G products in the mid-range and even close to the 1,000 yuan price range. For example, Xiaomi's Redmi Note 9 Pro even offers a 5G phone with a decent configuration of 100 million pixels for 1,599 yuan. In 2020, the top five mobile phone manufacturers have launched a number of 5G phones priced at just over 1,000 yuan.

In 2020, 5G mobile phones have also become the main models in the entire mobile phone market. Taking the Chinese market as an example, data released by the China Academy of Information and Communications Technology show that in November 2020, the Chinese market shipped 20.136 million 5G mobile phones, accounting for 68.1% of mobile phone shipments in the same period; 16 new models were launched, accounting for 53.3% of the number of new mobile phone models launched in the same period. From January to November this year, the domestic market has shipped 144 million 5G mobile phones and launched 199 new models, accounting for 51.4% and 47.7% respectively.

Looking to the future: In addition to mobile phones, 5G scale expansion requires more terminal forms

In the first year of 5G scale expansion, in addition to smartphones, 5G terminals are also expanding from mobile phones to CPE, tablets, industry customized terminals and other fields. The expansion and innovation of 5G terminal forms can be expected in the future.

At the same time, if 5G terminals with richer forms are to reach more consumers and even thousands of industries, they also require the cooperation of all parties in the industrial chain.

For example, 5G modules are a key link in enriching the industry's 5G terminals. However, at present, real 5G modules, 5G industrial gateways, and 5GtoB terminals are still relatively limited. Currently, a 5G module costs about a thousand yuan. When the price of 5G modules drops to three or four hundred yuan, more terminal manufacturers should be willing to launch more types of 5G terminals.

In summary, in the first year of the extraordinary 5G scale expansion, as the main form of 5G terminals, 5G mobile phones have become the choice of more and more users, and have become the new main force in the smartphone market in special times; and if 5G is to expand to a larger scale, we still need more innovations on the terminal side.