Strategy Analytics: Radio Components for Cellular Terminals Set to Reach $30 Billion in 2016

The market for RF and associated radio components in cellphones and other cellular terminals will grow to more than $30 billion in 2016, as detailed in the Strategy Analytics RF & Wireless Components (RFWC) report, “Cellular Radio Components Will Reach $30 Billion 2016 Driven by Basebands, PAs, FEMs in Multiband 3G / 4G Devices” This EXCEL-based report covers the historical and projected market for radio components in cellular terminals in detail including basebands, transceivers, PAs and filters, in dollar and unit terms.

According to Christopher Taylor, Director, Strategy Analytics RF & Wireless Components, "The advent of phones with four or more W-CDMA and LTE bands has opened up the market to multimode, multiband PAs (MM-MB PAs), accompanied by more complex front-end modules containing filters, antenna switches and duplexers, for example in the form of ASMs (antenna switch modules), SFMs (switch filter modules) and ADMs (antenna duplexer modules). Drain modulation ICs, which can improve the efficiency of a PA tasked with covering more bands or modes, will also make inroads, especially in multimode, multiband LTE smartphones. Based on regional bands, partitioning trends and the number of expected cellular terminals shipped, we expect the market for RF components alone, excluding RF transceivers and basebands, to grow an average 9 percent per year to more than $5 billion in 2016.”

The 24 page report covers LNAs / LNA-filters, PAs, transceivers, basebands, baseband-transceiver SoCs, stand-alone RF switches, ASM / SFMs, ADMs, PA drain modulation ICs, SAW / BAW filters and duplexers in dollar and unit terms, with a detailed forecast through 2016 by major air interface (GSM / GPRS / EDGE, W-CDMA, LTE, CDMA, other). The report also provides the estimated total number of cellular terminals that will ship per year, courtesy of the Strategy Analytics Wireless Practice, including legal handsets, cellular PC data devices, cellular M2M and grey market terminals.

Eric Higham, Director of the Strategy Analytics GaAs and Compound Semiconductor market research service, added, “Many of the GaAs PA suppliers have positioned themselves to provide more complete solutions for the RF front ends in phones, in particular Skyworks, RFMD, Murata / Renesas, TriQuint and Avago Tech. Each company has its own mix of products and technological strengths, and the direction the market takes combined with new component technologies will play big roles in the success of these companies in cellphones.”

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