On December 6, 2018, the three major operators have obtained a nationwide 5G low and medium frequency band test frequency use license, which means that 5G has entered a comprehensive construction cycle.
From the data of all parties, it is expected that pre-commercialization will begin around the middle of 2019, and full commercialization will be achieved in late 2020.
1, industry chain combing
As 5G is not a simple industry, it itself is a category of infrastructure, so in accordance with the logic of the first underlying facilities, to the integration of the industry, the investment opportunities of 5G is divided into the upstream infrastructure, midstream communication service providers, downstream application scenarios.
- Upstream Industry: Infrastructure
This field mainly refers to the industry growth brought about by the upgrading of key devices on the upstream equipment side of 5G.
5G compared to 4G will need to cover a denser base station, so the related optical devices, antennas, filters, vibrators, etc. demand will increase significantly, the three major carriers are expected to capital expenditure will be more than trillion scale.
- Midstream industry: communication equipment service providers
Main equipment providers: At present, 5G equipment is mainly led by two companies: Huawei and ZTE.
Communication service providers: the three major carriers mobile, telecommunications, Unicom.
- Downstream industry: application scenarios
5G was originally a category of infrastructure, so it could potentially change almost every industry.
So the scenario relevance will be divided based on three main characteristics: ultra-high speed, ultra-low latency, and ultra-large connections.
Ultra-high speed: pan-content multimedia, AR/VR
Ultra-large connectivity: smart city, smart home, smart healthcare
Ultra-low latency: autonomous driving, industrial internet
- AR (expected in 2020)
The VR concept was introduced in the 1980s. AR concept was introduced 5-6 years later, around 1990, but most of the AR/VR is applied to gaming entertainment devices.
From 2016, AR/VR once became a hot spot in the capital market, with a large number of startups pouring in, but according to the data provided by crunchbase, the investment events and financing amount of this field in 2017 have declined to a certain extent.
At present, the development of AR/VR is limited by four main reasons: resolution and high latency, lack of content, hardware technology, scene limitations.
With the popularization of 5G, resolution and high latency will be prioritized, and at the same time will stimulate the content and hardware to realize the update and upgrade.
VR's consumer electronics attributes are heavier, and the C-end use of the scene is very limited. AR is more suitable for B-end scenes, such as industrial manufacturing, medical, decoration, etc., so it is predicted that AR has a better development prospect than VR.
According to IHS, it is expected that the number of global consumer VR headset users will rise from 28 million in 2017 to 75.7 million in 2021. Consumer spending on VR headsets will also grow from $2.4 billion in 2017 to $5.9 billion in 2021.
The entire AR/VR market is expected to exceed $11 billion in 2021, growing at a CAGR of over 36%.
5G's ultra-high speed, ultra-low latency attributes will update the game content industry.
Cloud gaming is the process of placing a game on a cloud server, compressing the rendered game screen and delivering it to the user over the network, and transmitting the user's actions.
Previously, traditional 3A top-level games had very high requirements for hardware and network speeds, but cloud gaming, because it is not processed locally, has lower performance requirements for endpoint hardware, allowing more quality games to be promoted to the general audience.
In recent years, consumer electronic smart devices such as smartwatches from Xiaomi, Huawei, and Apple, and Tmall Genie from Ali, have been gradually popularized, but the development of other "IoT+X" application layer areas has been relatively slow.
For example, the broader consumer products - smart home, compared to Europe and the United States penetration rate has a huge upside (less than 1% in the domestic, the United States 6%). And with 5G will help smart home further penetrate the market.
And compared to the difficulty of transforming the industry for smart cities, smart manufacturing, etc., some lightweight smart homes may be able to explode faster.