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DigiTimes Sees 5-Year CAGR of 3.8% for Smartphone Shipments
October 14, 2019

DigiTimes Research Global provided an optimistic forecast of smartphone shipments to grow at a CAGR of 3.8% from 2019~2024, driven by replacement demand for entry-level smartphones in emerging markets and commercialization of 5G networks, according to. Smartphone shipments are expected to start recovering in 2020 and forward after declines in 2018-2019, with prospects to reach over 1.5 billion units in 2022 and 1.6 billion units in 2024. They forecast that the top 6 OEMs in 2020 are expected to be Samsung Electronics, Huawei, Apple, Xiaomi, OPPO and vivo. Accumulated shipments by the top-6 vendors should grow 5.1% on year to over one billion in 2020 with their combined marker share edging up 0.6pp as compared to a year earlier. Shipments of 5G-enabled smartphones are expected to be less than 10 million units in 2019 and should expand nearly 20-fold to 175 million units in 2020.

Along with the increasing penetration of 5G networks and popularity of related 5G services, prices of 5G phones will continue to decline over the forecast period and will eventually ramp up the ratio of 5G models to nearly 50% of global smartphone shipments in 2024. Global shipments of small- to medium-size TFT LCD panels are expected to total 1.8 billion units in 2024, representing a 5yr CAGR of - 4.4%. LCD handset panel shipments during the forecast period will show a CAGR of minus 7.2%, as shipments of AMOLED applications will continue to grow and account for 50% of global handset panel shipments in 2024.
 
More AMOLED panel production lines at major display makers, particularly those in China, will gradually come online during 2021-2022, which in turn will result in a 10% Y/Y reduction in output of LCD handset panels during these two years.