Juniper Research: 5G Smartphones to Make Up Half of Global Sales by 2025

5G smartphones will represent more than 50% of smartphone sales revenue by 2025. In the said time frame, Juniper Research estimated sale increasing by as much as three-fold; rising to $337 billion from $108 billion in 2021.

5G Smartphones the Next Big Thing - Juniper Research

Juniper also said that the availability of affordable 5G smartphones will remain crucial for fast 5G adoption. This will be especially true for emerging markets, where smartphone pricing remains a key factor in decision-making.

As such, the research firm estimated that Android smartphones will sell as much as 65% cheaper than iPhones. Furthermore, the lower average cost will allow Android smartphones to dominate the 5G smartphones markets. However, iPhones will still account for 40% of the global 5G revenue in developed markets such as North America.

Juniper also said that even though India does not have a commercial 5G network yet, it still has become the 4th largest 5G handsets market in the world. The country only trails behind China, US and Japan - all of which have 5G networks. India also has the lowest ASP of $410 among those markets.

Juniper Research also noted the top 5 smartphone vendors. Realme led the space with a 23% share in 2Q21, followed by OnePlus and Oppo, as per IDC. In the premium 5G smartphones market, OnePlus led the race in the second quarter.

Juniper Research said that vendors need to ensure that the hardware is designed to maximize the benefits of cloud solutions. It further said that the vendors who manage to add radios that allow processing large bandwidth and ultra-low latency will dominate the market. This will also allow users to use cloud computing services efficiently, while being price competitive.

Adam Wears, the author of the research, said, "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".

Wears added, "hardware vendors must use this opportunity to build out new device capabilities to encourage consumers to continue regularly upgrading and avoid churn to competitors".

The report also shed some light on the impending ‘right-to-repair’ legislation in North America and Europe. It said that the move will likely limit the long-term 5G smartphone shipment revenue; more users would choose to repair their old handsets rather than upgrading.