5G drives continued growth in sales of cellular baseband processors

Strategy Analytics' latest research report, "Cellular Baseband Forecast 2020-2025: 5G ASP Strength Will Drive Revenue Growth", found that Qualcomm, MediaTek, Samsung LSI, Apple, Unisoc and HiSilicon will lead cellular device baseband processor shipments by 2025. In terms of revenue, new features enabled by advanced transistor technology, such as higher data rates, artificial intelligence and higher-performance image processing integrated into processors, will help offset the decline in average selling prices brought about by the growth of mid- and low-end devices and machine-type communication applications; by 2025, the market is expected to grow annually by 6.5%.

“Qualcomm’s strength in 5G will help the company maintain momentum through 2025 as operators and phone OEMs continue to move away from 3G and 4G,” said Sravan Kundojjala, associate director at Strategy Analytics and co-author of the report. “Even as competition intensifies in 5G from chipset vendors such as MediaTek, Samsung LSI, Unisoc and HiSilicon, as well as specialist IoT chip vendors, Qualcomm’s innovation will keep it well-positioned and lead to growth in baseband shipments and revenue.”

Christopher Taylor, Director of RF & Wireless Components at Strategy Analytics and author of the report, added: “Non-handset cellular chips will continue to grow at a healthy pace, and M2M module suppliers will continue to rapidly shift to LTE Cat. M and NB-IoT next year. 3GPP Rel.17 in 2022 will drive 5G growth for new machine-type communication applications that do not require high data rates but do require 5G’s low latency and high reliability. The average selling price of processors used in M2M radios is relatively low, but despite this, the expanding benefits of 5G will help support the overall price of 5G basebands, thereby driving market growth.”

The report covers baseband processors for all cellular user equipment, not just mobile phones, and includes standalone communications processors, baseband processors with integrated application processors, and baseband processors with integrated RF transceivers, GNSS and microcontrollers used in some M2M modules.