5G smartphones, VR HMDs to witness high growth rates in 2021
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Editor
| 03 June 2021
The boom in at-home entertainment is spurring the need for improved intelligent devices and enhanced connectivity capabilities with Investment in AI, wireless technologies and in particular 5G are stimulating significant growth in the consumer devices market says a study ABI Research.
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The analyst found that most consumer devices and services, especially 5G smartphones, accessories, and virtual reality (VR) head-mounted displays (HMDs), will remain healthy in terms of shipments in 2021 as the global economy recovers from the effects of the pandemic. It adds that major players, including Apple, Qualcomm, Sony and Amazon will continue investing in the development of smart consumer products such as augmented reality (AR) smart glasses, smartphones, wearables, smart home devices to meet exacting consumer needs in a post-pandemic world.

ABI Research forecasts 681 million 5G handsets to be shipped in 2022 and stresses that the race is on for OEMs to find a level of differentiation in their flagship portfolios to help boost margins and improve market share.

Wireless headset shipments are projected to reach over 1 billion units in 2025, with true wireless headsets (TWS) accounting for 50% of sales, growing at a CAGR
of 27.9% between 2020 and 2025. Lower device costs in combination with technological innovations, such as Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) Audio, TinyML, and built in sensors will, says ABI, drive demand and unlock new use cases and applications such as location-based audio sharing.

“True wireless headsets are among the winning sectors in the smart accessories market, with many players, especially from the smartphone industry, launching TWS to remain competitive, while at the same time, expanding regionally and promoting a connected device ecosystem,” noted Eleftheria Kouri, consumer technologies research analyst at ABI Research. “As the market gradually recovers from the pandemic, tech giants will continue the development of merger and acquisition deals in game-changing areas like artificial intelligence (AI), machine learning (ML), and voice and sound recognition in order to design smarter consumer products and services to remain completive in a fast-growing marketplace.”

BLE is anticipated to account for 38% of total Bluetooth consumer device shipments, with the most important product categories including speakers, smartwatches, and hearables by 2025, growing from 19% in 2020. ABI Research also expects that the launch of WiFi-6 and Wi-Fi6E devices to accelerate chip shipments due to higher demand for consumer Wi-Fi-enabled devices such as smart home appliances and AR/VR HMDs.

“Consumers will favour those devices with updated protocols due to their promise of higher bandwidths, providing connectivity to a larger number of devices with limited interference,” Kouri added.