5G phones for $150 by the end of 2020? Huawei’s 5G product line prez thinks so

There has been enough discussion about how 5G phones that are expected to be launched this year will not be cheap. However, with the launch of Qualcomm's Snapdragon 765/765G, the possibility of cheaper 5G devices became real. But how cheap is actually doable by the smartphone industry keeping the BOM (bill of materials) in mind?

Well, according to Huawei's President for 5G product line, Yang Chaobin, 5G smartphones priced around $150 can possibly be launched by the end of 2020 or by early 2021.

Huawei, along with its sub-brand Honor, has launched a number of 5G smartphones in 2019, including the Mate 30 5G series, Mate 20 X 5G, Mate X 5G, Nova 6 5G, Honor V30 series. Recently the company also announced that they had shipped 6.9 million units of 5G devices as of December 2019 besides offering end-to-end 5G solutions.

An estimated 5 million 5G-capable smartphones were sold in December 2019 alone and is expected that more than 20 % of the smartphones under $290 will be 5G-enabled in 2020. Also, Chinese local research agencies have suggested that 20% of all mid range smartphones will support 5G, thanks to the expansion of the network in the country.

By 2021, therefore, 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, he had also revealed that the company is planning to release more than 10 5G phones this year.

Goldman Sachs has also forecasted a hefty 200 million 5G smartphone shipments globally this year and the new predicted value is about 20 times more than the sales figure of 2019. According to 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.