With an increase in their disposable income, people are purchasing smartphones in large numbers. Such consumer electronics offer multiple internet-enabled features, such as email access, location-based services, weather updates, and shopping capabilities. Moreover, people are using their smartphones for ordering food, streaming music and videos online, social networking, and many other purposes. For enabling these services, it is important that the mobile device enjoys smooth connectivity to the network infrastructure. In addition, with the increasing usage of high-bandwidth applications on mobile phones, it is also important to have a high data transmission speed.

As per P&S Intelligence, the rising demand for smartphones will be a key factor to drive the 5G radio-frequency (RF) transceiver market from $112.0 million in 2019 at a massive 30.4% CAGR between 2020 and 2030. This is because it is the transceiver that allows a smartphone to receive and send signals, be it of regular wireless calls or internet traffic. In this era where smartphones are becoming more than a mobile phone, transforming into personal assistants, older technologies, including 2G, 3G, and even 4G, are becoming ineffective. Thus, countries around the world are upgrading their telecommunication infrastructure by integrating 5G RF transceivers.

Among the countries at the forefront of the 5G revolution are China, South Korea, and India, where governments have begun inking deals with telecom component providers to get their infrastructure 5G-ready. For instance, Chinese electronics giant Huawei Technologies Co. Ltd. signed 25 memoranda of understanding (MoU) with national telecom service providers for sales and trials of its 5G equipment, including RF transceivers, in 2018. A year later, three Chinese state-owned telecom service providers — China Telecommunications Corporation, China Mobile Limited, and China Unicom Limited — launched 5G services.

Apart from mobile phones, 5G RF transceivers are also integrated in base stations, which, ultimately, all phones, wired and wireless, communicate with. In this regard, the growth of the telecom sector around the world is fueling the demand for such components. With the demand for faster data transmission and clearer voice rising from the expanding telecom consumer base in the U.K., the U.S., South Korea, and China, these countries are rapidly upgrading their base stations to 5G. For instance, since the 5G service rollout in China in 2019, over 86,000 compatible base stations have been set up, reflecting a huge rise in the number of 5G RF transceivers installed.

Moreover, Finnish smartphone manufacturer Nokia Corporation signed 62 contracts with leading mobile network service providers, including Verizon Communications Inc. and AT&T Inc., and launched 18 commercial 5G networks around the world. Furthering the pace of connectivity transformation, the People’s Ministry of Industry and Information Technology had also announced plans to set up 500,000 5G base stations in 2020. The same year, Ericsson, the Swedish telecom giant, established a 5G base station in the U.S.

Due to such a rapid upgradation of the telecom network by regional governments, Asia-Pacific (APAC) dominated the 5G RF transceiver market in the past. APAC is also home to the most people, so the consumer base for telecom services and smartphones is naturally the largest here. Moreover, with the IT industry of the region witnessing technological advancements, the adoption of the internet of things (IoT), building security systems, smart farming, smart utility meters, commercial satellite imaging, and home automation is rising. Since all these applications also require high-speed internet connectivity, the demand for 5G RF transceivers continues to rise in APAC.

Therefore, with governments around the world beginning to offer improved telecom services to people, the requirement for 5G RF transceivers is bound to increase.