5G business smartphone shipments to grow steadily

5G business smartphone shipments will grow at a CAGR of 28% over the 2021-2026 forecast period, according to a Strategy Analytics forecast.

High positive growth is expected in China, India, Australia, South Korea, UK, France, Germany, and the US, as 5G begins to ramp in these countries in 2021. Worldwide BYOD 5G smartphone shipments will increase by 187% YoY, and corporate-liable shipments will increase by 649% YoY from 2020.

Increasing competition in the 5G Android space, particularly from Chinese vendors, will drive downward pressure on ASPs, which are expected to drop 23%, but revenue is expected to increase almost 10-fold from 2020 to 2026.

5G business smartphone market driven by enterprise mobility technology adoption

According to Gina Luk, Principal Analyst, Mobile Workforce Strategies at Strategy Analytics, and author of the report, “In general, the 5G business smartphone market will be driven by increased adoption of enterprise mobility technology and solutions such as Artificial Intelligence, Machine Learning, Augmented reality (AR), Virtual Reality (VR), Enterprise Mobility Management (EMM), Unified Endpoint Management (UEM), Rich Communication Services (RCS), mobile UCaaS and mobile business apps.

“Key vendors like Apple, Samsung, Huawei, Nokia and Google, are seeing 5G as an opportunity to bring mobile devices closer to the mobile workforce, with the implementation of vertical applications, IoT apps and Unified Endpoint Management (UEM).”

Andrew Brown, Executive Director of Enterprise Research at Strategy Analytics, added, “COVID-19 forced businesses to shift operations from the physical to the virtual world, emphasizing the importance of fast and reliable connectivity as a number one priority for enterprises.

“The pandemic also illustrated why businesses need to be able to adapt and respond to sudden business disruptions. Amidst a global economy slowdown, 2021 will see a rapid 5G adoption, with more 5G-ready devices on the market, and 5G penetration in the enterprise beginning to ramp.”