Stefan Mileschin

A 5G smartphone will cost $1000 or $5000 for an iPhone

It is starting to look like the arrival of 5G will come at such a high premium it will put a lot off. Word on the street is that an average 5G smartphone will cost 1000 dollars which means that super premium phones with an over-the-top mark-up like the iPhone will come in at much higher than that.

Given that 5G is also being pushed for the internet of things and self-driving cars, we can expect that these devices are going to be hugely expensive.

According to DigiTimes, smartphone supply chain sources said that the cost of Qualcomm's X50 5G modem chips is more than 70 percent higher than that of top-tier smartphone modem chips. Qualcomm and other chipmakers are actively seeking to bring down the costs of 5G chip solutions, but the cost reduction space is quite limited given the fact that 5G chips have to be fabricated using 7nm process or even more advanced 5nm node.

The $1000 price tag has proven to be a graveyard for smartphones. Apple has largely tried and failed to put its iPhone X into that category, and many just said no it was too expensive. To make matters, worse 5G phones will be heavier and more power-consuming than 4G models.

https://fudzilla.com/news/mobile/457...ght-trouble-5g