5G ICs Market - Forecast(2024 - 2030)

The Global 5G ICs market size is forecast to reach $58.3 billion by 2026, growing at a CAGR of 25.4% from 2021 to 2026. Growing demand for high-speed internet services supporting broad network coverage, increasing adoption for cellular IoT connections and rise in mobile data traffic overtime attributes to the growth of 5G ICs market. With the surge of COVID-19 pandemic, there is significant growth towards work from home activities, driving the need for high-speed bandwidth cellular networks like 5G modems, routers and others. Additionally, growing investments towards 5G smartphone and high adoption of advanced technologies like IoT, AI and others have also emerged as the major factors driving its market growth. PCB designing using gallium nitrides with higher power density over silicon have been propelling its deployment in 5G radio frequency solutions due to smaller form factors. Rising investments towards connected vehicles, smart healthcare services, factory automation and others will propel the need for high speed wireless communication, driving the market growth forward.

The report: “5G ICs Industry Outlook – Forecast (2021-2026)”, by IndustryARC covers an in-depth analysis of the following segments of the 5G ICs industry.

By Type: RFIC (Radio Frequency Integrated Circuit), ASIC (Application Specific Integrated Circuit), mmWave IC (Millimetre Wave Integrated Circuit), SoC (System on Chip), Others

By Mode of Operation: TDD (Time Division Duplexing), FDD (Frequency Division Duplexing)

By Network Deployment: Standalone, Non-Standalone

By Category: Analog IC, Digital IC

By Module: Antenna Switch Modules, Modems, Multi Band Multi Mode User Equipment, Cellular Modules, RF Filters, Front-End Module, Power Amplifier Module with Integrated Duplexer, Others

By Application: Smartphones & Mobile Devices, Wireless Communication, Network Components, Data Center, Industrial Equipment, IoT devices, Others

By End Users: Automotive, Consumer Electronics, Healthcare, Retail, IT & Telecommunication, Energy & Utilities, Others

By Geography: North America (U.S, Canada, Mexico), Europe (U.K, Germany, Italy, France, Spain, Others), APAC (China, Japan, South Korea, India, Australia, Others), South America (Brazil, Argentina, Others) and RoW (Middle East, Africa)

Millimeter Wave Integrated Circuit (mmWave IC ) segment is analyzed to grow with the highest CAGR of around 9.5% in the global 5G ICs market during 2021-2026. Factors such as high transmission quality, security, and others have been attributing towards its wider deployment of across demanding applications including smart hospitals, industrial manufacturing, connected cars and others. Due to its capability of offering high bandwidth requirements, adoption of 5G mmWave have been facing significant rise over the years, creating potential of delivering application areas be it augmented reality, cloud gaming, autonomous guided vehicles and others, as a part of improving digitization and connectivity. According to recent studies conducted by IndustryARC, mmWave spectrum have started becoming more widely available within countries such as US, Italy, Japan, Finland and South Korea with a number of other countries on the way to follow up in the coming time, further propelling the demand for 5G mmWave integrated circuits or chipsets. In June 2021, MixComm Inc. announced about the launch of a 5G mmWave frond-end IC, named SUMMIT 3741. This mmWave IC is capable of operating at frequency range of 37-41GHz alongside integration with power amplifiers, low-noise amplifiers, beam-formers, power telemetry, high-speed SPI control and others, serving optimal partitioning required for 5G infrastructures. Such developments are further set to boost the market growth of 5G mmWave ICs in the long run.

Automotive sector is analyzed to account for the highest CAGR of around 7.2% in the global 5G ICs market during 2021-2026. Automotive sector has been facing rapid evolution overtime along with technological advances with the high proliferation of 5G, IoT and artificial Intelligence with others. Usage of 5G cellular technology for serving automotive application areas including fleet management, navigation, vehicle to everything (V2X) communication and others have been growing significantly, impacting the need for 5G ICs. High investments towards R&D activities related to connected vehicles, self-driving cars, and others can be considered vital in driving the market growth for 5G ICs in the long run. Since low end field programmable array have been already popular for use in automotive applications, its potential of being power efficient, makes it an ideal choice for building constituents of 5G infrastructure. Deployment of 5G chipsets help the automotive manufacturers to enhance vehicular communication standards through supporting low latency high bandwidth data transmission, ensuring increased driving safety for the consumers. In August 2020, one of the leading automakers, General Motors had revealed about its plans of launching vehicles with 5G connectivity, for its Chinese consumers, beginning from the year 2022. This initiative by the company was taken as a part of its update towards providing faster connection for remote or over-the-air, updates and communications with other connected vehicles or infrastructures. Such factors are analyzed to enable technologies including autonomous vehicles and advanced driver-assist systems, depending majorly on requirements like high connectivity and advanced mapping with additional sensors or radars, thereby propelling the need for 5G ICs in the coming years.

APAC region is analyzed to witness the highest growth in the global 5G ICs market with a CAGR of around 11.4% during the forecast period 2021-2026. Rising adoption of advanced technologies like IoT, artificial intelligence and others, growing demand for high speed network connectivity overtime across various countries and shift towards smart automation across various end-use sectors have been attributing towards the market growth of 5G ICs within the region. Growing penetration of mobile devices, increasing investments towards the development of 5G network infrastructures along with high R&D activities related to 5G smartphones can be considered as prime factors anticipated to drive the market forward. According to IANS (Indo-Asian News Service), average traffic per smartphone user within India attributed to 14.6GB per month in 2020, in comparison to 13GB per month in 2019. Also, as per IANS report 2021, there will be nearly 330 million 5G smartphone subscriptions over the next five years, showing a rise of around 26% of mobile subscriptions within the country. With such predictions ahead, 5G smartphones penetration will be significantly growing in India, contributing towards the demand for 5G ICs in the long run. High investments from key market players including MediaTek Inc., Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd and others towards R&D activities will further boost the market growth. In February 2021, MediaTek announced about the launch of a 5G modem, named M80, capable of combining both mmWave as well as sub-6 GHz 5G technologies within a single chip. This was done in order to support ultra-fast speeds on standalone as well as non-standalone architectures, with a peak rate upto 7.67 Gbps and 3.76 Gbps for downlink and uplink respectively, thereby analyzed to drive the market forward for meeting more reliable connection requirements in the long run.

Growing investments towards development of 5G smartphones can be considered as one of the major drivers boosting the growth of 5G ICs market. With technological advances overtime and trends such as increasing demand for high speed internet connectivity, faster network coverage and others have helped the smartphone manufacturers to shift towards 5G technology. With increasing market competition as well as rising use of mobile services, the need for developing 5G smartphones to meet consumer expectations is also impacted significantly. Development of these smartphones will eventually drive the need for semiconductor integrated circuits, due to requirements like growing demand for high bandwidth, data storage, faster mobile connectivity and many more. Major Smartphone manufacturing companies such as Vivo, Samsung, Realme, Xiaomi and many others have already started investing on 5G smartphones to expand its customer base within the consumer electronics markets. In June 2021, Realme announced about its plans of launching a 5G smartphone at a price under Rs. 10,000 by the next year. Owing to this plan, the company had revealed about investing over Rs 2,100 crore (around USD 300 million) towards 5G research and development alongside setting up seven R&D centres across various locations including India. Such investments from key smartphone vendors overtime is further set to drive the demand for embedded device chipsets like 5G ICs in the long run.

Increasing adoption of advanced technologies such as IoT, AI, and others is analyzed to be one of the major drivers in the market growth of 5G ICs. With surge of connected and smart devices across enterprises to enhance digitalization, there is higher adoption of advanced technologies be it IoT, AI and so on.  Leveraging 5G technology helps in supporting a massive number of static as well as mobile IoT devices, in order to serve a broad range of requirements including high speed, bandwidth as well as quality of service. Usage of 5G integrated chipsets have been facing wider adoption across various end-use markets for supporting high-performance use cases like smart cities, industrial IoT, smart healthcare and so on. Since 5G technology act as a scalable and efficient solution for IoT or AI enabled devices to connect at higher speeds, making data streaming, transmission and storage, driving faster wireless connectivity. In April 2021, Vodafone Idea Ltd. Had revealed about the launch of a 5G ready IoT solution, consisting of connectivity, hardware, analytics, networks, application, security as well as support, as a part of serving enterprises digitize their businesses. Such factors are analyzed to boost the growth towards 5G ICs within various connectivity solutions and hardware in the long run.

High costs related to IC designing, manufacturing or fabrication process act as a major factor restraining the market growth of 5G ICs. Since 5G technology is still undergoing improvements alongside adoption of 4G technology being there in the markets, high costs associated with it significantly slows down its adoptability. Since the chip designers need to combine advantages such as low power consumption, high bandwidth support, network performance optimization and so on, which require skilled labour and expertise to handle its designing complexities, thereby adding to the overall operational costs for the manufacturers. Due to its high manufacturing costs, 5G chipsets incorporated within various applications, including smartphones, smart devices and many others eventually raises the purchasing costs for the consumers as well, which significantly hampers the growth of such 5G devices, adversely impacting the growth of 5G ICs.

Product launches, partnerships and R&D activities are key strategies adopted by players in the 5G ICs market. 5G ICs top 10 companies include Qualcomm, Skyworks Solutions Inc., MediaTek Inc., Xilinx Inc., Qorvo, Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd., Broadcom Inc., Marvell Technology Inc., Analog Devices Inc. and Intel Corporation among others.