5G Chipset Market Size & Share Analysis - Growth Trends & Forecasts (2025 - 2030)

Global 5G Chipset Market Trends and Insights

Commercial-grade SoC Integration Driving Smartphone ASP Premiumization

Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 8 Elite for Galaxy is packed with dedicated tensor engines besides its 5G modem, enabling on-device large-language-model inference and allowing flagship phones to command 25–30% higher ASPs than 4G predecessors.^{[1]Samsung Newsroom, “MWC 2025: Explore AI-Powered Innovation,” news.samsung.com} MediaTek echoed the approach with its Dimensity 9400+, integrating 42 TOPS AI horsepower without a battery-life penalty. Higher margins created a virtuous circle, funding fresh R&D at advanced nodes and widening the total addressable 5G chipset market for premium suppliers. Mid-range handsets followed suit: Samsung’s Galaxy A56 5G shipped scaled-down AI-ready silicon, bringing “Awesome Intelligence” to mainstream price points and broadening demand for integrated chipsets.

Automotive-Grade 5G Telematics Control Units Accelerating Adoption in ADAS-centric Vehicles

Hyundai partnered with Samsung to validate 5G Reduced Capability (RedCap) modules exhibiting 40% lower power draw yet sub-10 ms latency, meeting stringent functional-safety targets for emergency braking use cases. Automakers saw connectivity as a gateway to subscription services and over-the-air updates, shifting revenue models beyond initial vehicle sales. Tesla’s Berlin Gigafactory embedded private 5G across its production line, underscoring how end-to-end 5G networking supports both manufacturing efficiency and connected-car features. Regulatory triggers such as EU eCall mandates further guaranteed a baseline install rate for 5G-capable telematics units in new vehicles.

Private 5G Roll-outs in Industry 4.0 Manufacturing Hubs of Germany and Japan

Siemens and O₂ Telefónica equipped German plants with licensed-spectrum private 5G, reducing unplanned downtime that could previously cost an automotive line EUR 1.3 million (USD 1.47 million) per hour. Japanese factories fused 5G and digital-twin software to lower overall-equipment-effectiveness losses by 15–20%. Edge nodes collocated with base stations processed sensor flows locally, cutting response times to milliseconds and supporting predictive maintenance. Deutsche Telekom’s commercial mmWave links for industrial clients highlighted a structural pivot from public macro networks to deterministic, factory-owned grids.

O-RAN Reference Designs Spurring Merchant-Silicon Demand from Tier-2 Telcos

Verizon fielded multi-vendor O-RAN radios powered by merchant silicon, slashing capex by as much as 30% and avoiding full-stack vendor lock-in. Operators in India and Southeast Asia mirrored the move; Vodafone Idea’s O-RAN blueprint accelerated deployment in price-sensitive geographies. Start-ups such as EdgeQ merged AI inference engines with open-interface base station logic, letting software dynamically re-balance compute between beam-forming and RAN analytics.

Geopolitical Export Controls Limiting China-bound EDA/IP Toolchains

Washington’s 2024 restrictions on leading EDA suites from firms such as Synopsys and Cadence blocked China-based chip designers from advanced verification flows, stretching tape-out cycles, and inflating costs. Domestic programs like QiMeng attempted to bridge the gap, but fragmentation forced multinationals to duplicate design pipelines for Chinese and non-Chinese variants. Huawei pivoted by crafting proprietary EDA stacks, signaling a structural re-routing of global design IP portfolios.

Yield-drain at 3 nm EUV Nodes Elevating Foundry Costs for 5G Baseband Dies

TSMC’s early 3 nm yields hovered near 55% in 2024, far lower than mature nodes, lifting per-die costs for complex modem-RF designs. Samsung’s competing 3 nm line faced similar setbacks. Limited wafer output delayed flagship processor launches and splits the 5G chipset market into a high-price premium tier on advanced nodes and a mainstream tier on 5/6 nm or 14 nm nodes.

Segment Analysis

By Chipset Type: Integration Becomes the Performance Baseline

SoC designs embedding modem, AI tensor engines, and RF front-end captured 74.5% of the 5G chipset market share in 2024, illustrating OEM demand for smaller footprints and lower power envelopes. That dominance lifted the 5G chipset market size for SoCs to USD 22.1 billion in 2025. Millimeter-wave chips, though only a sub-segment today, are scaling at 21.2% CAGR as thermal envelopes improve in both smartphones and enterprise gateways. Samsung’s 5G RedCap demonstration with Hyundai confirmed niche chip architectures tailored for prolonged operation on reduced batteries, signaling fresh revenue pools beyond flagship handsets.

The tilt toward deep integration reshaped supplier dynamics. Vendors possessing both modem IP and application-processor know-how exploited cross-domain co-optimization that discrete approaches could not match. At the same time, demand for radio-frequency integrated circuits (RFICs) in small-cell and massive-MIMO infrastructure remained resilient, and field-programmable gate arrays (FPGAs) served specialized defense and test-equipment niches. Edge-AI workload diversity compelled chipset designers to add configurable accelerators, keeping doors open for programmable logic within RAN and private-network applications.

Note: Segment shares of all individual segments available upon report purchase

By Operational Frequency: Sub-6 GHz Holds Coverage; mmWave Accelerates Capacity

Sub-6 GHz solutions accounted for 90.2% of the 2024 5G chipset market, equating to USD 30.1 billion of the 2025 5G chipset market size on steady network coverage requirements. Their favorable propagation and global spectrum availability aligned with operators’ economics for nationwide roll-outs. Yet chipsets engineered for > 39 GHz registered the fastest 23.5% CAGR because industrial indoor deployments and fixed-wireless access embraced multi-gigabit throughput. Researchers at the University of Bristol demonstrated gallium-nitride amplifiers breaking new efficiency records in the W-band, foreshadowing 6G-readiness and spurring R&D spend above 70 GHz.^{[2]Science Daily, “Breakthrough in Semiconductor Technology Set to Supercharge 6G Delivery,” sciencedaily.com}

In urban grids, the 26–39 GHz band bridged capacity and coverage. Smartphone vendors nevertheless watched thermal ceilings carefully: high-frequency power amplifiers pushed skin-temperature limits, explaining why mmWave attach rates climbed first in enterprise CPE before migrating into consumer handsets. Spectrum fragmentation persisted as a design headache; chip builders had to support dissimilar channel bandwidths and duplexing modes across regions, inflating front-end bill-of-materials and validation cycles.

By End-User Industry: Automotive Surge Redraws Demand Mix

Consumer electronics kept 65.1% of revenue in 2024, but the 5G chipset market size for automotive and transportation is poised to jump from USD 1.9 billion in 2025 to USD 6.2 billion by 2030, riding a 26.3% CAGR. Automakers rely on high-bandwidth over-the-air updates and vehicle-to-everything (V2X) safety streams, embedding multiple 5G antennas per car. John Deere’s private 5G inside its U.S. plants exemplified how industrial automation is sucking chip volume from beyond the handset base.

Healthcare, while smaller today, is emerging: latency-critical telesurgery and real-time diagnostics pull specialized modems into portable imaging and wearables. Energy utilities adopted 5G for smart-grid telemetry and drone-based inspection, while the retail sector ran augmented-reality product guides and shelf analytics. Each vertical leans on a mix of sub-6 GHz chips for reach and mmWave or RedCap devices for capacity-plus-battery goals.

By Process Node: Dual-Track Silicon Strategy Appears

sets that required transistor-dense layouts. Yet, devices fabricated on > 28 nm nodes are expanding 27.1% CAGR because industrial IoT and non-premium smartphones prefer cost-optimized wafers less vulnerable to EUV yield risk. TSMC’s USD 42 billion capacity build aimed at 2 nm mass production underscores competition for leadership-class silicon. Samsung vowed to match with 2 nm mobile chips in 2025 and an enhanced 1.4 nm generation by 2027.

Automotive OEMs, bound by long design cycles, aligned to 10–28 nm to secure decade-plus supply guarantees, while handset flagships transitioned swiftly to 3 nm once yields stabilized. Supply-chain resilience strategies compelled device makers to dual-source across foundries and node generations, mitigating geopolitical exposures.

Geography Analysis

Asia-Pacific dominated the 5G chipset market in 2024 with a 45.3% revenue slice, reflecting China’s accelerated base-station roll-out, South Korea’s early commercial launches, and Japan’s private-network appetite. Taiwan’s foundry ecosystem and South Korea’s memory-plus-logic stack formed a synergistic production hub impossible to replicate quickly elsewhere.^{[3]Samsung Newsroom, “Samsung Solidifies Its Mobile AI Leadership at MWC 2025,” news.samsung.com} Chinese policy backed domestic silicon champions with procurement preference, enabling break-even wafer volumes even when export restrictions trimmed addressable overseas demand.

North America followed, driven by private 5G in manufacturing and logistics, plus the integration of 5G telematics across vehicle portfolios. Enterprise Wi-Fi off-loading to 5G and edge-cloud synergies drew hyperscalers and chip suppliers into joint reference designs, securing predictable demand for both sub-6 GHz and C-band infrastructure logic. Regulatory clarity around spectrum auctions and neutral-host models supported capital flow into campus networks.

Europe’s Industry 4.0 programs anchored 5G deployment budgets inside German automotive and chemical industries. Spectrum licensing rules favored local control, letting corporations acquire dedicated 3.7 GHz blocks. This spurred chipset demand tuned for low-bandwidth, time-sensitive networking. EU supply-chain sovereignty goals translated into funding for R&D in alternative semiconductor materials, such as gallium nitride, to hedge Asia-centric production risk.

The Middle East and Africa have emerged as the fastest-growing zone at 19.1% CAGR, with Gulf states installing smart-city platforms and cross-border logistics corridors that lean on multi-band 5G devices. Operators leapfrogged legacy fixed infrastructure, adopting 5G for last-mile broadband and industrial sensor networks. African telcos started to deploy fixed-wireless CPE using affordable RedCap chips to connect suburban households, creating new mass-volume device categories.