'iPhone 5G' in late 2020 will drive 200 million sales for Apple, says Ming-Chi Kuo
Apple analyst Ming-Chi Kuo has thrown his hat into the ring in regards to iPhone 5G predictions, and also suspects that it will be released in the second half of 2020, and it will have a big impact on sales.
Qualcomm 4G modem in iPhone
"We believe the uncertainty has been removed after Apple and Qualcomm's end of patent dispute and entrance into a six-year licensing deal, and Intel's announcement that it will exit the 5G baseband chip business," writes Ming-Chi Kuo in a note to investors, seen by AppleInsider.
Samsung is expected to provide sub-6GHz modem parts, with Qualcomm providing modems mmWave markets. Intel has exited the 5G smartphone modem market entirely, and Huawei saying that it would supply a modem to Apple is likely just a loud PR move by the company.
Kuo expects that the modem addition will grow iPhone sales from between 188 million and 192 million in 2019, to 195 million to 200 million by 2020. Between 70 million and 75 million of those sales in 2020 are predicted to be in the second half of 2020, following the iPhone 5G release.
Even with the increase from 2019 to 2020, that still falls short of the heyday of iPhone sales in 2015, with the company selling 231.2 million iPhones in that year. The company sold 211.8 million, 216.8 million, and 217.7 million iPhones in fiscal years 2016, 2017, and 2018 respectively.
In regards to the "iPhone 5G," TSMC has also developed a 5-nanometer design infrastructure, which can be employed for future chip designs and could land in the 2020 refresh. Earlier speculation suggested it could be used in the "A14" chips for the 2020 iPhones, and depending on the fortunes of N6, could still be a possibility.
Other rumors have pegged the entire 2020 line to use OLED screens, versus OLED in two models, and LCD in the iPhone XR at present. Samsung is expected to be the main supplier of OLED screens, but LG Display and Japan Display aren't presently expected to garner any orders.
Qualcomm 4G modem in iPhone
"We believe the uncertainty has been removed after Apple and Qualcomm's end of patent dispute and entrance into a six-year licensing deal, and Intel's announcement that it will exit the 5G baseband chip business," writes Ming-Chi Kuo in a note to investors, seen by AppleInsider.
Samsung is expected to provide sub-6GHz modem parts, with Qualcomm providing modems mmWave markets. Intel has exited the 5G smartphone modem market entirely, and Huawei saying that it would supply a modem to Apple is likely just a loud PR move by the company.
Kuo expects that the modem addition will grow iPhone sales from between 188 million and 192 million in 2019, to 195 million to 200 million by 2020. Between 70 million and 75 million of those sales in 2020 are predicted to be in the second half of 2020, following the iPhone 5G release.
Even with the increase from 2019 to 2020, that still falls short of the heyday of iPhone sales in 2015, with the company selling 231.2 million iPhones in that year. The company sold 211.8 million, 216.8 million, and 217.7 million iPhones in fiscal years 2016, 2017, and 2018 respectively.
In regards to the "iPhone 5G," TSMC has also developed a 5-nanometer design infrastructure, which can be employed for future chip designs and could land in the 2020 refresh. Earlier speculation suggested it could be used in the "A14" chips for the 2020 iPhones, and depending on the fortunes of N6, could still be a possibility.
Other rumors have pegged the entire 2020 line to use OLED screens, versus OLED in two models, and LCD in the iPhone XR at present. Samsung is expected to be the main supplier of OLED screens, but LG Display and Japan Display aren't presently expected to garner any orders.
Comments
The arguments that
1) "You can't use it today -- and I get a new phone every year"
2) "It doesn't apply to me because I live in a remote, rural area."
Are basically bogus. Countries, telecoms and mobile equipment manufacturers aren't sinking billions into it because it has no value.
Yes, the U.S. is behind in rolling out 5G (even though Verizon plans to have it in 30 cities before 2020). But, that is because of politics. Other countries, like China, are rolling it out with the full support of their manufacturers and national & local governments. But, for Apple, China is rapidly becoming their major market -- they wouldn't want to set themselves even further back by participating in political gamesmanship.
i don’t see any feature that will entice people to upgrade from an existing phone faster. It’s not going to be faster bandwidth. It’s not going to be folding phones. It’s not going to be OLED, miniLED or microLED.
My 6S Plus is still running really strong, after battery changeout and iOS 12. Love it. I can use it for another year without issue I think. Whatever glass formulation Apple uses for the 6S Plus, it’s been magic with the micro-scratches, ie, preventing them.
https://appleinsider.com/articles/19/04/16/huawei-chairman-says-apple-has-not-discussed-buying-its-5g-modems-for-iphone
Politics is an influence since at least on the T-Mobile/ Sprint side they are waiting on the status of the pending merger before they rollout their network(s). I don’t think there is anything in particular holding back AT&T and Verizon beyond bad experience from customers thus far.
https://www.fastcompany.com/40530898/six-u-s-intelligence-agencies-warn-against-using-huawei-phones
https://www.theverge.com/2018/2/14/17011246/huawei-phones-safe-us-intelligence-chief-fears
You're entitled to your own opinions, but you're not entitled to your own facts. Problematic, I know.
I wonder what Apple can offer users to entice them to upgrade to a new iPhone in 2019 knowing that a 5G iPhone will arrive in 2020.
https://www.taiwannews.com.tw/en/news/3685669
New Huawei P30 Pro found to be querying servers in China
If there was actual demand for more gigabit per second bandwidths, landline fiber rollouts would be going a lot faster, and ownership cycles for cell phones would be shorter. WiFi has long outrun cable modem or fiber service, and not many people are clamoring for that either.
I think people are happy with regular 50 megabit per second LTE as long as they can get it. LTE-A which can get up to 250 to 500 megabit per second hasn’t been enough to get people to upgrade and keep phone cycles short. What’s 5G going to to do?
If 5G came with unlimited data plans, actual unlimited, maybe that’ll get people to upgrade, but people aren’t upgrading for 5G in this scenario. They are upgrading for unlimited data.
Rather I was challenging the article's allegation that it's chairman's offer to sell/license its modems to Apple (and only Apple) was as the the article put it " a loud PR move" rather than a legitimate, honest offer to a U.S. company in trouble. And, yes. their CEO did clarify the offer the next day saying that it was strictly an offer -- that they were not in talks with Apple. If it was purely a " a loud PR move".as the article alleges, they would not have had the honesty and decency to clarify it without any prompting.