Microwave Tech - Antenna Market Segment Analysis of 5G Industry Chain

About 5G industry chain,the application of antenna includes the base station side and the terminal side, and no matter in the base station or in the terminal, the antenna is the signal transmitting and receiving middleware, antenna performance, directly affect the quality of communication. Mobile phone terminal antenna is used to transmit and receive radio waves, connecting the radio frequency front end, is the beginning of the receiving channel and the end of the transmitting channel. The base station antenna is similar to the terminal antenna and is also a signal converter, but the base station antenna connects the base station equipment to the end user.

According to the statistics of "Daily Financial Report", in the beginning of 4G construction in 2013-2014, the scale of domestic antenna market grew rapidly, and 5G coming in 2020-2021, this growth flexibility will be further amplified. From the current development situation, the number of 5G base stations will be 1.5 to 2 times that of 4G, and the single value of 5G base station antenna is 3-4 times that of 4G, and the combination of the two, the total antenna size of 5G period is 4.5 to 8 times that of 4G, corresponding to the global market of 500 to 900 billion yuan, taking the middle value of 700 billion yuan.

1., Expansion of antenna market in the 5G era

There are two reasons for the high growth of antennas in the 5G era: the increase in the penetration rate of 5G mobile phone and the increase in the number of antennas brought by the increase of 5G frequency band, which correspond to terminal antennas and base station antennas respectively. According to Bcc Research, the global antenna market will be worth $22.5 billion in 2021, while the smart antenna market will be worth $7.6 billion. According to Yole Development, the terminal antenna market is projected to grow from $2.23 billion in 2018 to $3.08 billion in 2022, a cagR of 8.4%.

The increase in quantity and price is the fundamental reason why the antenna investment scale in the 5G era will be greatly increased compared with that in the 4G era.

In terms of the characteristics of 5G base station antenna, the number of 5G mobile phone antenna channels will be improved compared with 4G. In 4G period, the main channel is 4 channels, while in 5G period, it will be expanded to 64 channels. In the sub-6G band, AAU equipment includes three types: 64T64R, 32T32R, and 16T16R. 64T64R AAU equipment has 64 transceiver channels. Most of them are deployed in 5G data hotspot areas such as dense urban areas. The rest of the region uses 32 transceiver channel or 16 transceiver channel.

In addition, 5G base station antenna needs to meet the characteristics of high frequency, high speed and large flow transmission, and the technical difficulty and antenna material are improved. The value of antenna is increased. The cost of 4G base station antenna is about 800-1000 RNB/pair, and the cost of 5G base station antenna is estimated to be 3000-4000 yuan/pair. The simultaneous increase in the number of 5G base stations and the single value of 5G base station antenna will boost the investment scale of 5G base station antenna to greatly increase.

By the end of 2019, the number of 4G base stations reached 5.44 million, accounting for 64.7 percent of the total; The number of 5G base stations in China has exceeded 130,000, and the market expects that the number of 5G base stations in China will be around 700,000 in 2020. The epidemic has slowed down the global 5G construction, and 2021 will be the peak year of 5G base station construction.Increase in terminal level, 5 g phone function, prompting phone internal function modules, moreover, an increased mobile application 5 g phone power consumption, to meet the daily needs, the battery must expand the volume, but phone overall volume increase is limited, so how to realize the reasonable layout of internal space is a big problem to 5G phones.

In order to cooperate with the rationalization of 5G mobile phone design, the design and layout of the internal antenna is more difficult and the preparation complexity is more complicated. At the same time, the integration trend of internal modules is more clear, and the value of the internal antenna of mobile phone will naturally rise. On the other hand, the number of antennas carried by 5G phones will also increase significantly. The number of antennas carried by 4G phones will be 2-4, including 2 communication antennas, 1 Wifi antenna and 1 GPS antenna. The number of 5G mobile phone antennas is expected to be 8-10, including two 4G communication antennas, four 5G communication antennas, two Wifi antennas, one GPS antenna, etc.

2, Domestic antenna PCB manufacturer

Before 2G, China's base station antenna industry was almost blank, the base station construction was almost 100% dependent on imports, and the unit price of antenna was high. In May 2000, the Ministry of Information Industry issued the Technical Conditions of Base Station Antenna for Mobile Communication System, marking the real start of base station antenna industry in China. Then China's base station antenna industry stepped into the domestic replacement period. From 2002 to 2004, some provincial operators tried to unpackage antenna procurement, and domestic antenna began to have a little market, but the proportion was only a single digit.

Since 2005, the antenna equipment of the three major operators has been unpackaged and purchased in a centralized way across the country. China's base station antenna industry began to develop rapidly. By 2009, domestic antennas accounted for more than 85% of the market in the domestic market, but the global base station antenna market was still occupied by Germany's Kathrin and the United States' Compandreu up to 79% of the market. Patent barriers have seriously hindered domestic antennas from entering the international market. After breaking the patent barrier in the following years, China's base station antenna industry developed rapidly, and the global market share of Chinese antenna manufacturers reached more than 60%, becoming a real power of base station antenna.

"Daily Earnings" learned that in the field of base station antenna, huawei as the representative of domestic enterprises have a clear market advantage. According to a report released by EJL Wireless Research, the top companies in the global base station antenna market share are Huawei (32%), Jingxing Communications (13%), Compo (12%), Mobile Development (8%), Ace (8%), Tongyutong (7%), Kaislin (5%), etc. The competition of 5G antenna has just begun. In the later stage of 5G construction, antennas in the millimeter-wave board, which is different from the existing 5G band, will appear. The millimeter wave band here refers to 24GHz to 52GHz, while the existing 5G industry chain band is below 6GHz. But as things stand, Huawei's lead is hard to shake.