Global smartphone shipments are likely to be capped below 1.5 billion units in 2019 as the emerging 5G-enabled phones have yet to spur replacement demand and the building of a 4G smart feature phone ecosystem has yet to complete, according to Digitimes Research.
 
Nevertheless, the replacement demand for 5G smartphones will start emerging in 2020 as telecom operators begin to kick off commercial operations of their 5G networks, ramping up global smartphone shipments to over 1.5 billion units in the year and to 1.7 billion units in 2023, Digitimes Research estimates.
 
Looking into 2019, Samsung Electronics, Apple, Huawei and Xiaomi will remain the top-four smartphone vendors in 2019. Although Oppo and Vivo are likely to see their shipments decline in the year, they will still manage to take the 5th and 6th positions, respectively.
 
The top-four vendors each will be able to maintain a shipment volume of over 100 million units in 2019, but Oppo is likely to see its shipments drop to below 90 million units and Vivo's shipments to sink below 70 million units in the year. Meanwhile, China-based Transsion Holdings and India-based Reliance (brand name LYF) will rank 9th and 10th, respectively, in 2019, with their shipments each exceeding 35 million units.
 
HMD Global (Nokia) will manage to outrace China-based Meizu to take the 11th position in 2019, and TCL, Asustek Computer and ZTE will trail behind Meizu to rank from 13th to 15th.