‘$150 5G phones to be launched by the end of 2020’

Beijing, Jan 18 (IANS) Chinese smartphone manufacturer Huawei’s President for 5G product line, Yang Chaobin believes that 5G smartphones priced around $150 are expected to be launched by the end of 2020 or in early 2021.

Huawei, along with its sub-brand Honor, has launched a number of 5G smartphones in 2019, including Mate 30 5G series, Mate 20 X 5G, Mate X 5G, Nova 6 5G, Honor V30 series, among others, news portal GizmoChina reported on Friday.

Recently, the company announced that it has shipped 6.9 million units of 5G smartphones as of December 2019, in addition to offering end-to-end 5G solutions.

Additionally, Chinese local research agencies suggested that 20 per cent of all mid range smartphones will support 5G, thanks to the expansion of the network in the country.

An estimated 5 million 5G capable smartphones were sold in December 2019 alone. It is expected that more than 20 per cent of the smartphones under $290 will be 5G-enabled this year.

By 2021, the same statistics are expected to be applicable across the globe.

Xiaomi co-founder Lei Jun recently announced the company is planning to pump $7 billion in 5G, AI and IoT over the next five years.

Earlier, Lei had also revealed that the company is planning to release more than 10 5G phones this year.

US-based investment banking and financial service company Goldman Sachs has also forecasted a hefty 200 million 5G smartphone shipments globally this year.

The new predicted value is about 20 times more than the sales figure of 2019.

According to the estimates, there will be about 1 million new 5G base stations in China this year. This is higher than the original 600,000 prediction by Goldman Sachs.