Global 5G phone sales surpassed those of 4G handsets for the first time in January 2022

[nanoguy]

In brief: The number of 5G base stations is increasing, and so is the number of handsets that support 5G signals. Apple's brand force was the highest in pushing for 5G adoption, followed by Samsung and the top three Chinese smartphone brands. At this rate, the number of 5G subscriptions could reach 4.4 billion within the next five years.

January 2022 was the first month since the introduction of 5G when sales of 5G-enabled smartphones surpassed those of 4G-capable models. According to the latest market report from Counterpoint Research, a lot of that growth can be attributed to the iPhone.

An estimated 51 percent of the handsets sold globally in January this year had a 5G modem inside, and the biggest growth was observed in China, Western Europe, and North America. China is a particularly bright spot for 5G, with a market penetration of 84 percent. Analysts believe this is due to a combination of aggressive 5G deployments by Chinese carriers (1.4 million base stations as of writing this), as well as a large supply of 5G handsets at a variety of price points.

North America and Western Europe saw penetration rates of 73 percent and 76 percent, respectively. In North America, Apple's 5G iPhones accounted for over 50 percent of overall sales, despite the company being late to the 5G party. Now that the iPhone SE also features 5G connectivity, this figure looks set to increase in the coming months.

Counterpoint notes that in the case of Android 5G phones, the most popular models are in the $250 to $400 price range. In Asia and Latin America, a new wave of 5G handsets that are in the $150 to $200 price range accounted for around one fifth of total 5G sales.

Samsung leads the pack of Android OEMs with a 12 percent share of the global market, followed by Xiaomi, Vivo, and Oppo with 10-11 percent shares. Meanwhile, Apple's 5G iPhones make up 37 percent of global 5G sales.

In its 2021 Mobility Report, telecommunications giant Ericsson estimated that there are now over 5.5 billion smartphone users in the world, and mobile networks carry 300 times more data traffic than they did 10 years ago -- a whopping 65 exabytes per month.

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https://www.techspot.com/news/93822-global-5g-phone-sales-surpassed-4g-handsets-first.html

 

[Mr Majestyk]

And where I live we still don't have an ETA for it's roll out. Total joke and then the plans are dearer too.

 

[p51d007]

In my area, my phone SHOWS 5G (I'm on at&t), but the speed is still 4G. Reminds me of when LTE came along. Coworker was in OKC last weekend, was on a mm 5G tower & was getting almost 3gig down.

 

[RaXelliX]

And where I live we still don't have an ETA for it's roll out. Total joke and then the plans are dearer too.

Same here. 5G licences had been involved in court battles for years. Only lately it was sorted out but it will still take years to build coverage. With 4G/LTE we were at the forefront.

 

[Toju Mikie]

In my area, my phone SHOWS 5G (I'm on at&t), but the speed is still 4G. Reminds me of when LTE came along. Coworker was in OKC last weekend, was on a mm 5G tower & was getting almost 3gig down.

There are a few reasons. My guess is that it could be that your phone doesn't support 5G standalone. Your phone can say 5G, but if it's also connected to 4G/LTE, it can choose to use the LTE instead of the 5G and you can't manually switch it.
Maybe you are also connected to low band 5G as well, and not mid band or mmWave which will give you the gig+ speeds. The problem is some of these phones are not telling you which bands you are connected to (especially on carrier variants which are not factory unlocked). I believe there are apps you can use (Android-only) which will show you the extra information.

 

[p51d007]

There are a few reasons. My guess is that it could be that your phone doesn't support 5G standalone. Your phone can say 5G, but if it's also connected to 4G/LTE, it can choose to use the LTE instead of the 5G and you can't manually switch it.
Maybe you are also connected to low band 5G as well, and not mid band or mmWave which will give you the gig+ speeds. The problem is some of these phones are not telling you which bands you are connected to (especially on carrier variants which are not factory unlocked). I believe there are apps you can use (Android-only) which will show you the extra information.

Nope, it supports 5G. A. It's the new Pixel 6 Pro, B. I tested it in an area that had the 5G towers.

 

[Toju Mikie]

Nope, it supports 5G. A. It's the new Pixel 6 Pro, B. I tested it in an area that had the 5G towers.

Oh, that's weird then.

I did see this info on the AT&T site for your phone though:
https://www.att.com/buy/phones/google-pixel-6-pro-128gb-cloudy-white.html

"1Maximum battery life based on testing using a mix of talk, data, standby, and use of other features. Battery life depends upon many factors and usage of certain features will decrease battery life. Battery testing conducted by a third party in California in mid 2021 on preproduction hardware and software, using default settings. Battery testing conducted using two major carrier networks using Sub-6 GHz non-standalone 5G (ENDC) connectivity. Actual battery life may be lower."

You will see it says non-standalone 5G there. All that's needed to unlock 5G SA would be a software update from google.
Now, I could be totally wrong and Google already put an update that allows 5G SA and the phone is just being weird about which bands it wants to connect to.

 

[p51d007]

Oh, that's weird then.

I did see this info on the AT&T site for your phone though:
https://www.att.com/buy/phones/google-pixel-6-pro-128gb-cloudy-white.html

"1Maximum battery life based on testing using a mix of talk, data, standby, and use of other features. Battery life depends upon many factors and usage of certain features will decrease battery life. Battery testing conducted by a third party in California in mid 2021 on preproduction hardware and software, using default settings. Battery testing conducted using two major carrier networks using Sub-6 GHz non-standalone 5G (ENDC) connectivity. Actual battery life may be lower."

You will see it says non-standalone 5G there. All that's needed to unlock 5G SA would be a software update from google.
Now, I could be totally wrong and Google already put an update that allows 5G SA and the phone is just being weird about which bands it wants to connect to.

Here's the bands it supports. Not sure if some of these are country specific or not.


[5G bands
1, 2, 3, 5, 7, 8, 12, 14, 20, 25, 28, 30, 38, 40, 41, 48, 66, 71, 77, 78, 257, 258, 260, 261 SA/NSA/Sub6/mmWave - G8VOU

 

[Toju Mikie]

Here's the bands it supports. Not sure if some of these are country specific or not.


[5G bands
1, 2, 3, 5, 7, 8, 12, 14, 20, 25, 28, 30, 38, 40, 41, 48, 66, 71, 77, 78, 257, 258, 260, 261 SA/NSA/Sub6/mmWave - G8VOU

Wow, that's really good band support, a lot better than my Sony Xperia 1 III. You could probably even use that phone around the world without much issue. AT&T started rolling out n77 this year, so by the end of the year, you should definitely see improved speeds. AT&T got a late start in 5G frequency deployment compared to T-Mobile and Verizon. I'm currently on t-mobile, and the 5g mid-band coverage is very nice. Eventually, when they start doing aggregation on 5G bands, that's when we will really see multi-gig speeds with no need for mmWave. I think that's like at least 2 years from now though, for us in the States.

 

[Duke9192]

I have a Sprint Samsung S20 5G and I can say that atleast for me, the speed more so relative to your location and volume of usage on the tower than the 5G data technology. The reason I say this is because I live in a rural part of NC with 5g coverage and my maximum available land-line speed is 10 mbps so I imagine many people use their phones for accessing the internet..... When using 5g cell data, I can only receive 15 or so mbps, sometimes less. When I was in the mountains of NC last year I was able to repeatedly get 650 mbps download using the speed test.net app. My assumption is that there were fewer users and less throttling in the area.

 

[NumberSix]

Dunno why everyone is obsessed with 5G and its speeds when the real benefit is the huge increase in capacity over 4G, no more "I've got full signal and bugger all is happening".