Qualcomm CEO Steve Mollenkopf says that 5G is rolling out faster than 4G:

The 5G rollout is actually faster than the 4G rollout if you just look at the number of networks launching in the first year and a half to two years of the launch. Also, just look at the degree to which the new technology is existing in the portfolios of handset manufacturers and how deep they go in terms of the price tiers. The other thing that is really important is that the handset market has actually already made the switch to that technology even before you start to see the deployment.

When we look at it with the eyes of seeing many of these transitions we’re quite pleased with the way the 5G rollout is occurring.

5G Handsets Grew 150% Year-Over-Year

5G handsets grew by 150% year-over-year. What gives us confidence is if you look this year the real question was how would the market react to the COVID pandemic? Obviously, a couple of quarters ago, there was a lot of concern about how different industries would react. What’s happened in the handset industry is it’s probably come back a little stronger than people expected. One of the reasons that we had such a good print this quarter was because the handset market in total was a little stronger than we thought.

We thought it might be down about 15% due to COVID but it ended up being about 5% down. We’ve used that as an assumption moving forward. So we have a lot of confidence actually in our 5G forecast and the handset forecast overall. I think our visibility into the way that the market is performing even in this pandemic environment has increased over the last several quarters.