MWC cancelled but China's 5G development continues: three major baseband chips form a leading position with 550,000 base stations

If the COVID-19 pandemic hadn't happened, the tech world would have ended last week with a focus on the highlights of the annual MWC. As an annual event for the ICT industry, the latter has not only become a stage for many tech giants to showcase their latest technology products and flex their muscles, but has also become a weathervane for the global tech industry.

Undoubtedly, the biggest industry focus this year is 5G. After South Korea first launched global 5G commercial use last year and China officially issued 5G licenses to the four major operators, 2020 became a key year for the development and implementation of global 5G. The global industry chain was preparing for 5G and was eager to show its talents at MWC. However, the sudden outbreak of the epidemic eventually forced many manufacturers to withdraw from the exhibition, and the conference was eventually cancelled.

However, although MWC has been cancelled, the development of 5G in China will not stop. In the past two weeks, giants represented by operators, equipment manufacturers, mobile phone manufacturers and Internet companies have shown off their new 5G products and solutions in the fields of networks, chips, mobile phones, etc., serving up a rich appetizer for the 5G theme banquet throughout the year.

5G baseband chips: The world's top five compete for supremacy, with China occupying three seats

In the 5G industry chain, baseband chips are the most core and critical technology, and the industry's highest focus is also gathered here. After Huawei HiSilicon launched the first 5G SoC chip Kirin 990 last year, Qualcomm also launched the Snapdragon 865 and the external X55 baseband chip to compete with it. At present, the smoke of the industry's debate on the advantages and disadvantages of Huawei and Qualcomm's two models has not yet dissipated, but it is enough to indicate that the competition for 5G chips in 2020 will be more intense.

On February 26, Qualcomm released the third-generation 5G baseband chip X60 online. This is the world's first 5nm process baseband chip with a download speed of up to 7.5Gbps and an uplink speed of up to 3Gbps, and supports Voice-Over-NR 5G voice technology. Qualcomm said that X60 supports all 5G key frequency bands, including millimeter wave and sub-6 GHz, which can give operators enough flexibility to make full use of fragmented spectrum resources to improve 5G performance and achieve a truly complete 5G network experience.

On the same day, China's mobile phone chip giant Unisoc also released its new generation 5G SoC flagship chip Tiger T7520. Unisoc called Tiger T7520 "the world's first full-scenario coverage enhanced 5G baseband". It uses TSMC's 6nm EUV manufacturing process, which can reduce power consumption by 8%. It supports frequency bands below 6GHz, NSA/SA dual-mode networking, 2G to 5G seven-mode full network access, dual-SIM dual 5G, VoNR high-definition voice and video calls and other advanced standards and technologies. The peak downlink rate in SA mode can exceed 3.25Gbps, and the upload can reach 1.25Gbps.

As of now, Unisoc is also the only mobile phone chip company in mainland China that is open to the open market (HiSilicon supplies Huawei exclusively). Together with MediaTek in Taiwan, this also means that in the increasingly fierce competition among the five global 5G chip manufacturers, my country's 5G chip manufacturers have already occupied three seats and have established a firm position.

In addition, Intel, which announced its withdrawal from the 5G mobile phone chip field last year, did not lag behind. On February 24, Intel announced the launch of the first 10nm chip Atom P5900 for wireless 5G base stations and the second-generation Xeon processor for data centers. Intel officials said that they have regarded 5G network infrastructure as the biggest opportunity, and the goal is to become the market leader of 5G base station chips in 2021, and strive to occupy 40% of the market share, which is ambitious.

Regarding this wave of competition, a person from an operator's technical department told Jiwei.com that compared with Qualcomm's external baseband approach, the SoCs represented by HiSilicon and Tsinghua Unigroup are more "radical." According to him, although Qualcomm is relatively "conservative," its performance in the laboratory is indeed more stable. However, the SoC model is still the trend of the future. The fact that Chinese manufacturers are the first to take this step undoubtedly indicates that Chinese manufacturers are already leading the world in terms of technology.

5G mobile phones: The demand for replacement phones dispels the shadow of the epidemic 

In the entire 5G field, the most popular market focus is naturally mobile phones.

After the epidemic hit the mobile phone market hard, research firm Counterpoint predicted that China's smartphone shipments will drop by about 30% in the first quarter of this year. However, a person from a leading domestic mobile phone company told Jiwei.com that the epidemic mainly affected the 4G mobile phone inventory market, which would have been released by manufacturers in the first quarter to clear inventory before the shipment of new 5G phones.

Therefore, the pace of 5G mobile phone market releases will not slow down, and as the focus model of the year, sales are not expected to drop much. As the epidemic weakens and the replacement of mobile phones drives the growth of mobile phone shipments, mobile phone shipments will also improve quarter by quarter in the future.

In this context, many mobile phone manufacturers also released new 5G mobile phones in mid-to-late February. On February 13, the Xiaomi Mi 10 series mobile phone launch conference was held online as scheduled. The "100 million pixels" and the starting price of 3,999 yuan immediately set off a consumer market explosion. Lei Jun said in a subsequent interview that this year will be a key year for 5G mobile phone replacement, and it is expected that Xiaomi will launch at least 10 5G mobile phones throughout the year.

On February 24, Huawei released the new generation of foldable screen 5G smartphone Huawei Mate XS, with a market price of up to RMB 16,999. Yu Chengdong said that Huawei's smartphone market share has firmly ranked second in the world in 2019. As of January 2020, Huawei's 5G mobile phone shipments exceeded 10 million units. Subsequently, Huawei's Honor also released two new 5G phones.

On the same day, realme released the new X50 Pro 5G. realme said that in 2020, the company is committed to becoming a "global 5G popularizer" and launching more than 5 5G smartphones, covering all price segments from entry-level to flagship products. In the Chinese market, it will implement the "full 5G" strategy and no longer launch 4G mobile phone products.

On February 25, iQOO, a brand under vivo, also released the iQOO3 5G new product. On the afternoon of the 27th, Samsung's S20 series 5G mobile phones were also released in China. After entering March, there will be a batch of 5G mobile phones released. On March 6, OPPO will release the Find X2 series 5G mobile phones; on March 26, Huawei will release the P40 series 5G flagship mobile phones.

The China Academy of Information and Communications Technology released the "China Mobile Phone Market Operation Analysis Report in January 2020", which shows that as a new category, the shipment volume of 5G mobile phones reached 5.465 million units, which also proves the market's attention to and consumption capacity for 5G mobile phones. On February 21, Suning.com's consumption data showed that nearly 70% of new buyers chose to buy 5G mobile phones. On the evening of February 25, Lei Jun said that the pre-order for Xiaomi 10 Pro has reached nearly 100,000 units.

There is no doubt that although the epidemic is expected to sweep the world in the first half of the year, the release of 5G mobile phones will continue at a rhythmic pace, and market shipments will gradually improve driven by the wave of phone replacement. "We estimate that, including Apple, the global shipment of 5G mobile phones this year will be more than 150 million units at the most conservative," a smart terminal industry insider told Jiwei.com.

5G network construction: China leads the world in 550,000 base stations

GSMA statistics show that by the end of 2019, there were 46 5G networks in commercial use in 22 countries and regions around the world, and another 23 5GFWA networks in commercial use in 16 countries and regions. Currently, there are about 10 million 5G users worldwide, of which nearly 5 million are in South Korea. It is estimated that by 2020, there will be 170 operators in the world commercializing 5G networks, with more than 170 million users, accounting for 20% of the total number of mobile users.

In the current global 5G network construction, China's pace is undoubtedly the fastest.

At a recent meeting, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology stressed the need to formulate and optimize 5G network construction plans, accelerate the pace of 5G construction, especially independent networking, and effectively play the positive role of 5G construction in "stabilizing investment" and driving the development of the industrial chain. It is reported that there are currently 28 5G policies launched by provincial governments across the country.

The three major operators have also responded positively. It is reported that China Mobile has recently fully launched the equipment testing and procurement work for the second phase of the 5G project, with the goal of reaching 300,000 5G base stations by the end of 2020, ensuring that 5G commercial services will be provided in all cities above the prefecture level in the country within 2020. China Telecom and China Unicom, which have decided to jointly build and share 5G networks, have set a goal of completing the construction of 250,000 base stations across the country in the third quarter, which is one quarter ahead of the original plan. In the first half of this year, the two companies will strive to complete the task of 100,000 base stations in 47 cities.