Number of 5G devices breaks 500 barrier – December 2020

7 Dec 2020
Joe Barrett

Number of 5G devices breaks 500 barrier

By the end of November 2020, 519 devices had been announced, with number now commercially available exceeding 300 for first time

07 December 2020, London – The Global mobile Suppliers Association (GSA) today reported the number of announced 5G devices has surpassed 500 for the first time, accompanied by a rapid increase in the number of commercially available 5G devices. By the end of November 2020, 519 5G devices had been announced, of which 303 were understood to be commercially available representing more than 58% of all announced 5G devices. In the last three months, the number of announced 5G devices has grown by 29.4%, while there has been a 59.5% increase in the number of commercially available 5G devices over the same period.

“The status of device launches and availability can tell us a great deal about the wider health of the 5G ecosystem,” commented Joe Barrett, President of Global mobile Suppliers Association. “This year we’ve seen more and more symbolically important milestones being passed – over 500 announced 5G devices, more than 100 vendors, over 250 different phones, and 100 fixed wireless access CPE devices. And it doesn’t stop there; we expect more 5G devices to become commercially available, surpassing the 330 mark before the year is out. The device vendor community has stepped up and delivered in the face of unprecedented challenges. As an industry, we can be excited about the opportunities 2021 will bring.”
Part of the GSA Analyser for Mobile Broadband Data (GAMBoD) database, is the device ecosystem  which tracks 5G (and 4G) devices and contains key details about device form factors, features and support for spectrum bands. Access to the GAMBoD database is only available to GSA Members and to GSA Associates subscribing to the service.

The December 2020 5G Ecosystem Report containing summary statistics can be downloaded for free from https://gsacom.com/paper/5g-ecosystem-december-2020-executive-summary/?utm=devicereports5g.

By end-November 2020, GSA had identified:

•  20 announced form factors
• 104 vendors who had announced available or forthcoming 5G devices
  • 34 vendors have now produced or announced plans to produce 5G phones
  • 55 vendors have now produced or announced plans to launch their own indoor or outdoor 5G FWA CPE devices
• 519 announced devices (including regional variants, and phones that can be upgraded using a separate adapter, but excluding operator-branded devices that are essentially rebadged versions of other phones), including 303 that are understood to be commercially available
  • 251 phones (up 10 from October), at least 205 of which are now commercially available (up 36 in a month). Includes three phones that are upgraded to offer 5G using an adapter
  • 100 FWA CPE devices (indoor and outdoor), at least 34 of which are commercially available. These numbers have been restated this month with fixed wireless industrial/enterprise gateway devices (generally designed for IoT or private network applications rather than public broadband services) now counted separately72 modules, at least 23 of which are commercially available
  • 26 industrial/enterprise routers/gateway/modem, at least 14 of which are commercially available
  • 26 hotspots (including regional variants), at least 16 of which are commercially available
  • 9 laptops (notebooks), at least one of which is commercially available
  • 7 tablets, at least six of which are commercially available
  • 28 other devices (including drones, head-mounted displays, including in vehicle routers/modems/hotspots, robots, snap-on dongles/‌adapters, a switch, TVs, USB terminals/dongles/modems, cameras, a vehicle OBU, a vending machine and an encoder)

GSA has identified some spectrum support information for over 84% of all announced devices: 80.3% of all announced 5G devices are identified as supporting sub-6 GHz spectrum bands, while 19.7% are understood to support mmWave spectrum and 15.6% of all announced devices are known to support both mmWave and sub-6 GHz spectrum bands.

https://gscom.com

Number of 5G devices breaks 500 barrier
Number of 5G devices breaks 500 barrier