Murata Manufacturing Co., the world’s biggest maker of ceramic capacitors for Apple and other phone makers, expects demand for 5G phones to surpass 500 million units in 2021, building on a rush to replace Huawei in the worldwide consumer smartphone market.
Takashi Mochizuki and Yuki Furukawa for Bloomberg News:
Apple, Samsung Electronics Co. and Chinese rivals Xiaomi Corp., Oppo and Vivo are vying to secure components for their devices, hoping to fill a void as Huawei’s mobile business shrinks under the weight of U.S. sanctions. President Norio Nakajima said in a December interview that Murata’s factories won’t be taking a holiday break as they work to catch up with mounting orders, adding “the situation is most severe with our cutting-edge capacitors for smartphone use.”
“The industry had 300 million units of 5G smartphones during the current fiscal year, and I expect that to increase to at least 500 million in the next fiscal year,” the president of the Kyoto-based company said. “We will continue making capital expenditure to keep up with the growing demand.”
Ace Research Institute’s Hideki Yasuda doesn’t expect demand from Apple and its ilk to drop at any point in this calendar year, fueled by stronger-than-anticipated consumer appetite for 5G phones.
MacDailyNews Take: 500 million 5G phones – at least! Great news for Apple is obviously great news for Apple suppliers.
The quoted numbers are suspect at the very least.
For 800 million 5G phones to be sold in 2020 (300 million stated) and 2021 (500 million stated) that means that more than 10% of the population of the entire Earth will have purchased a 5G phone in 2020 and 2021.
That is more that 10% of the entire population — more than 10% of every man, woman, and child. Surely no one thinks that people are buying 5G phones for 1, 2, or 3 year old children. Hell, most children under the age of 10 around the world won’t be getting a 5G capable phone last year or in this year. At the other end of the spectrum the average 70+ year old is not going to run out and buy a new 5G phone unless they absolutely must.
Lopping off those outlier age brackets almost certainly makes up for the few who actually will get two 5G phones (either in 2020 or 2021). Thus it’s still more than 10% of the remaining population.
Further, what about all the 4G phones that were sold in 2020 and will be sold in 2021? Not all smart phones being sold in 2021 (even as late as December 2021) will 5G capable. I would even suspect that the majority of the phones sold in 2020 were 4G phones. Want a cheap phone for use in 3rd world areas? You’ll get a cheap 4G phone in 2021 even if it’s your brand new phone.