5G will take more time to break through in the consumer market

Nowadays, the number of 5G package users and 5G mobile phone shipments in my country are constantly increasing, and the future development of 5G in the consumer market is steadily advancing. However, the development of 5G applications in the consumer market seems to be a bit tepid, so can 5G applications break through in the consumer market?

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The recently released data of operators' operations in May shows that the number of users of 5G packages of the three major operators has been rising steadily and is now heading towards the 500 million mark. Canalys recently released its latest forecast that the global smartphone market will grow by 12% in 2021, with shipments reaching 1.4 billion units, of which 5G phones will account for 43%. This figure will increase to 52% in 2022, which means that 5G phone shipments will exceed 4G phones for the first time. It also means that the net increase in 5G phone users has begun to exceed that of 4G phone users, which will also become a trend in the future.

So, with the increasing market share of 5G mobile phones and the increasing number of users, where is the growth space for 5G users in the future? Will 5G's "killer application" appear in the consumer market?

According to the author's understanding, the 5G individual user market is growing continuously. With the advanced deployment of 5G in my country, consumers are constantly accepting 5G packages and networks. Therefore, the explosive growth of 5G in the consumer market still needs to wait patiently for the emergence of the "explosion point". For example, in the 3G era, consumers were not very receptive to 4G at first, but the emergence of the iPhone changed all this, and the smartphone market exploded. The latest research by Strategy Analytics shows that by June 2021, half of the world's population will own a smartphone. Today, about 4 billion people use smartphones. It took the world 27 years to reach this historic milestone.

Let's talk about the application of 5G in the personal market. In recent years, AR/VR, wearable devices, etc. have been recognized by more and more consumers, but there is still a long way to go to fully boost the revenue in the information consumption field. The entire industry needs to spend a lot of time and patience to actively explore the "killer applications" that may appear in the future.

In addition, the enrichment of 5G personal application types requires a certain process. The lack of richness at present may not necessarily be due to 5G. There are two possible reasons. On the one hand, the mobile Internet itself has developed to a certain stage, and all kinds of conceivable applications have been developed to a considerable extent. 5G mainly plays the role of a channel in the mobile Internet in the consumer field. The expansion of the channel cannot promote the enrichment of applications to a large extent, and the development of mobile Internet applications has encountered a bottleneck. On the other hand, 5G has improved network capabilities, but application developers have not really combined 5G capabilities to explore new application scenarios, and application development takes time.

The business model of the 5G consumer market also needs to be adjusted. The replacement cycle of ordinary consumers is about 30 months. After consumers replace their 5G mobile phones, they will become 5G users. Therefore, in addition to the increase in the number of 5G users, the key to the development of 5G toC business lies in the increase in ARPU value. In the era of providing connection and traffic services, the value-added part brought by traffic flows to OTT companies. The future industrial chain needs to be reconstructed and OTT companies need to feed back. Judging from the exhibitors of MWC2021, in the 5G era, OTT companies have paid more attention to the telecommunications industry. This is because OTT companies not only pay attention to the consumer market, but also the enterprise market. 5G provides basic connection capabilities, which creates greater room for enterprise development.

Today, my country's moderately advanced strategy for 5G network construction has given the industry time to explore toC applications. In order to achieve the goal of a huge application explosion in the future, the top priority now is to survive so that we can wait for 5G to blossom in the personal consumption field. Let 5G fly in the personal consumer market for a while, giving the industry time and confidence to explore 5G personal applications. I believe that 5G will eventually usher in great development in the personal market.