Driven by 5G demand, smartphone shipments are expected to grow 5.5% this year

Recently, the International Data Corporation (IDC) released its latest report showing that smartphone shipments are expected to grow by 13.9% year-on-year in the first quarter of 2021 and 5.5% for the whole of 2021. This growth will be driven by the continued recovery in demand and the supply of 5G equipment.

The report pointed out that 5G smartphones are driving the growth of global smartphone shipments this year. The shipment of 5G smartphones is expected to account for more than 40% of global smartphone shipments this year.

Although the scope of global 5G commercial networks expanded significantly last year and 5G smartphone shipments increased significantly year-on-year, the global smartphone shipments declined significantly year-on-year due to the impact of the epidemic. However, as the situation improves, many industries affected by the epidemic are recovering, and global smartphone shipments are expected to resume growth.

From a domestic perspective, the China Academy of Information and Communications Technology recently released a report on the operation of the domestic mobile phone market in February, showing that the domestic market shipments of 5G mobile phones reached 15.071 million units in February, accounting for 69.3% of the mobile phone shipments in the same period; 16 new models were launched, accounting for 57.1% of the number of new mobile phone models launched in the same period. From January to February, the domestic market shipments of 5G mobile phones reached 42.349 million units and 48 new models were launched, accounting for 68.4% and 59.3% respectively.

From the consumer side, the price of 5G mobile phones has continued to fall, attracting a large number of consumers to replace their phones, triggering a wave of phone replacement. Since last year, Huawei, Xiaomi, OPPO, vivo, ZTE and others have successively launched 5G mobile phones priced at thousands of yuan. For example, the Note9 Pro released by Redmi previously started at only 1,599 yuan, and the realme Q2i released in October 2020 was priced at 998 yuan.