5G competition

The worldwide smartphone market continues to be sluggish. US market research firm IDC said that the number of global smartphones from July to September 2018 decreased by 6% from the same period of the previous year to 355.2 million units. Global smartphone sales have declined for the fourth consecutive quarter. Especially in China, for six consecutive quarters compared to the same period in 2017. In China, where smartphone penetration is high, demand has become increasingly saturated. Japanese business executives said that the plan to achieve 5G in 2020 is inseparable.



Why is 5G?
Each company is eager to develop 5G, the communication speed is 10 gigabits per second, which is 10 times to 100 times that of 4G, and the time difference is 0:001 seconds, which is one tenth of 4G. Due to the moving speed of the 5G network, the entire super high quality movie can be downloaded in less than 1 second. Also, there is almost no delay in communication, which contributes to an improvement in accuracy such as automatic driving and remote operation of the robot. At the same time, 5G practicality will also accelerate the popularity of Internet of Things and VR technology.

Sino-US 5G dispute
Around 5G, the hegemonic struggle between the United States and China is intensifying. There are foreign media comments, Sino-US trade war 5G competition or key. The Wall Street Journal announced on September 14, 2018 that if the United States does not lead 4G competition, it is impossible to move from the current advantages of mobile technology and platforms to Instragram, Facebook, and flix. Therefore, if the United States slows down in the 5G market, it will create a sense of crisis in the world competition.



Trump

Japanese media ニュース屋台村 said that from the US market to rush out of Huawei Technologies and ZTE, it can be seen that the United States, while fearing information disclosure and cyber attacks, also hopes to gain the upper hand in the 5G market competition. The Japanese government also excluded ZTE and Huawei from bidding. In addition, the United Kingdom and Australia are also in sync with the United States.

IT companies such as Intel and Cisco submitted documents to the US-Turkey Representatives Department (USTR), arguing that tariffs on China will increase, and the cost of products such as routers and switches will be increased, which will constrain the development of 5G. In the eyes of the United States, China has far-reaching influence in the IT world.


5G World Hegemony
It is not just China and the United States that promote 5G development. Japan, South Korea, and Sweden are also staring at the 5G fat. NEC NEC announced on October 24, 2018 that it agreed to assist in the expansion of the 5g product portfolio for Samsung Electronics and the world market.



South Korea's Samsung and Japan's NEC

In addition, Fujitsu announced on October 26, 2018 that it will establish a strategic partnership with Sweden Ericsson for the provision of 5G networks and related services. Fujitsu and Ericsson are headed by the Japanese market and gradually expand their 5G applications to the world market.

The hegemonic power around the 5G world can be said to be more and more fierce.

The United States plans to start operating 5G in multiple cities in 2019. In the 2018 PyeongChang Winter Olympics, South Korea, which implements 5G operation trials, is also planning to start 5G operations in March 2019. In Japan, major companies plan to start 5G in the summer of 2019, and begin to commercialize 5G in the spring of 2020.



China 5G illustration
In China, China Unicom has conducted 5G trials in 16 cities and China Mobile in five major cities, with the goal of commercializing 5G in the third quarter of 2019. The Japanese media pointed out that according to this speed, the base station deployment of wireless networks in the vast China is not an easy task, and the strong support of state-owned operators and the government will make it possible.

According to the "Nikkei Business News" report, China's current 5G base station coverage has reached 350,000, 10 times that of the United States. South Korea, which just announced the 5G commercialization, actually covers only the Seoul metropolitan area and the metropolitan area. The most comprehensive carrier, LG U+, has deployed only 4,100 base stations at a rate of up to 1 Gbps. It is worth mentioning that the base station equipment used by LG U+ is from Huawei.



Huawei Ren Zhengfei

At present, Chengdu has completed the construction of 5G demonstration blocks such as Taikooli, and consumers can enjoy 5G hotspot services in these areas. In Shanghai, China Unicom recently indicated that it has built 75 5G pilot areas and will try commercials next year. In addition, the three major operators have previously announced 18 national 5G pilot cities.

Qualcomm's 5G patent
In order to seize market opportunities, Huawei and Qualcomm have made huge investments of up to 10 billion yuan in their research and development fields. Unfortunately, Huawei lost the absolute right to speak the 5G standard by one vote.

In other words, we have to listen to Qualcomm in the development and operation of the 5G standard.



Qualcomm CEO Stephen Morenkov

According to reports, Qualcomm CEO Steven Morenkov said in the "2018 Intelligent Technology Industry International Cooperation Forum" on November 6, 2018 that 5G commercialization will be realized within 19 years. Chinese companies such as OPPO, Huawei, and Xiaomi are planning to launch new models corresponding to 5g in 2019. The 5G mobile phone will be equipped with the Qualcomm's millimeter-wave 5G antenna module solution QTM052 and mobile chip.

In addition to the technical limitations, more important is the sky-high "patent fees."

For every 100 yuan of Chinese domestic mobile phones, Qualcomm will draw between 3.25 and 5 yuan. According to the average selling price of domestic mobile phones of 2,000 yuan, with 791 million mobile phone shipments in China in 2017, 491 million mobile phones need to pay more than 300 billion patent fees to Qualcomm.

Ps:

Fuji Research Institute of the Japanese market research institute predicts that the world market for 5G equipment will expand to 2.6 trillion yen in 2023, and the world market for 5G base stations will expand to 418 billion yen. In the future, in the 5G market, which country is the hegemony, the answer to this question will be announced in 2019.