Report Forecasts Global 5G Handset Sales Exceeding 300 Million by 2025

“Significant work” will be required “to marry the appeal of a unified early 5G standard with the longer term need to support diverse market requirements,” Strategy Analytics said in a Tuesday report. The research firm predicts 5G commercial handset sales will begin in 2020 and exceed 300 million by 2025. “The first commercial 5G handsets will appear in small numbers in 2020 in South Korea and Japan,” and additional markets, including the U.S., U.K., Sweden and China, will launch them a year later, the firm said. “By 2022 tens of millions of 5G handsets will be sold, and as a proportion of total handset sales will reach low single digit percentages.” The first “trial” 5G handsets in 2018 will have “teething problems,” such as short battery life and unstable connectivity, but “these issues will be largely resolved” by 2020, “though the first commercial 5G handsets will likely come with very high price tags,” it said.