Huawei to launch first 5G-enabled phone as early as next year

Huawei Technologies will launch its first batch of phones backed with 5G technology as early as 2019, as the mobile market rapidly grows in China, a senior Huawei executive said on Tuesday at the ongoing 2018 Summer Davos Forum in North China’s Tianjin Municipality.

“Fifth-generation (5G) technology will be 100 times faster than 4G, and 50 times more responsive. And it will also enable consumers to have experiences in unexpected ways, for example, with big, high-definition, foldable screens on smartphones,” said Ken Hu, deputy chairman and rotating chairman of Huawei.

“Our entire industry, from devices to infrastructure structure, has been prepared for the final roll out of 5G technology,” Hu said.

However, industry players cautioned at the forum that there are still barriers and concerns that need to be resolved during the process of 5G development, including the high costs of operating the new technology.

It is estimated that in order for some sectors – from connected cities to the Internet of Things – to reap the vast economic benefits of 5G technology, they will require $4 trillion in R&D and capital expenditures by 2020.

The business model won’t come cheap, and most of the costs will arise from operators’ reliance on the 5G spectrum band and the number of sites needed to cover a certain area, Mikael Bäck, head of business strategy for Swedish company Ericsson, said at the forum.

“There is also a lack of professional understanding of 5G technology itself in the global context, which is that 5G is essentially a more secure version of 4G,” Hu noted, in response to questions about rising security concerns over Huawei’s technology among some Western countries and escalating China-US trade conflict.