Phone vendors all-in on 5G, market share set to break 50%

Chinese smartphone vendors are swiftly shifting focus from 4G devices to launching 5G models, despite the impact of the coronavirus on the industry chain.

Shipments of 5G phones could take a market share of almost 50 percent in the near future, industry analyst said.

Xiaomi CEO Lei Jun, a deputy to the National People’s Congress, the top lawmaking body, told the Xinhua News Agency that the company cleared its 4G phone inventories in China at the end of 2019 and is now all-in on 5G.

The Global Times learned that other domestic phone vendors such as OPPO and Vivo also shifted their focus from 4G phones to 5G devices as early as the end of last year.

Huawei took the lead in China’s 5G smartphone market in the first quarter of 2020, the company said.

With competition in the 5G segment intensifying, prices will fall to about 1,000 yuan, and more models with high performance-price ratios will be launched in the second half of this year, said Fu Liang, a Beijing-based telecom industry expert.

“Meanwhile, there’s still demand for 4G phones, and absorbing those inventories represents a natural market process,” Fu said.

Sun Yanbiao, head of Shenzhen-based research firm N1mobile, told the Global Times that phone inventories are low in the wake of two months of market uptake. Inventories reportedly peaked at 30 million units in March with 4G phones taking the vast majority.

“Sales of 5G phones will likely reach 50 percent of the total,” Sun said.