Radio components still on upward trajectory even as phone growth slows

by Christopher Taylor | Nov 01, 2017

Wider Adoption of 4G and Launch of 5G Promise New Opportunities

Boston, MA – November 1, 2017 - Growth of cellular radio components in user equipment, overall, will slow over the next five years, but the markets for basebands, duplexers and front-end modules will continue to grow, as outlined in “Cellular RF Component Forecast 2016 - 2022: As LTE Matures, 5G Will Spur New Growth” by Strategy Analytics.

According to Christopher Taylor, author of the report,

“Much of the growth will occur in the RF front end with increasing penetration of LTE and the higher number of bands and complexity that this brings to phones, along with antenna diversity, carrier aggregation and gigabit LTE.”

Stephen Entwistle, VP of the Strategy Analytics, added that

“5G will have a multi-billion dollar impact on radio components as early as 2019 with the first 5G device shipments, and after that, 5G will quickly dominate cellular as the main growth driver for radio components. This should benefit chipset suppliers such as Qualcomm, as well as front-end suppliers Broadcom, Murata, Qorvo, Qualcomm, and Skyworks.”

The report details historical and predicted shipments of cellular radio components including basebands, transceivers, power amps, filters, duplexers, and front-end RF switch modules. An accompanying report, “PA Forecast 2016 - 2022: Modest Growth Expected by Historical Standards,” provides additional detail on the market and expected growth for power amplifiers by type, including MB-PAs, MM-MB PAs, S-PADs and PAMiDs.