5G Smartphone Landscape
The smartphone market is insanely competitive these days. Almost all major smartphone companies have announced their 5G smartphone so far, and are going to war with each other to be the best and earliest on 5G. But looking inside, we found that most of these companies actually belong to the same camp, fighting for the same warlord.
Within a 5G device, modem and RF designs are the most critical components, handling all the data transmission on the 5G network. Of all the available 5G smartphones we looked at, Huawei and Samsung are using their internally developed modem. Everyone else is using Qualcomm’s modem + RF solution. The list includes Xiaomi, Oppo, Vivo, LG, OnePlus and any other smartphone providers that you can think of. Apple will also join the group in 2020, making it an even stronger army.
This reminds us of the PC market, while guys like Lenovo and HP are busy fighting each other and destroy their own margin in the process, Intel is comfortably sitting in the back reaping all the benefits.
The smartphone is only one of the battlegrounds for 5G edge devices, and the real war is between players who provide modems, not only for smartphones but also billions of connected devices enabled by 5G in the next decade. This war is far from over, but Qualcomm has established a solid lead early in the game.
Close 
Esoterica's statements are not an endorsement of any company or a recommendation to buy, sell or hold any security. For full disclosures, click here.
