Wi-Fi 6 Product Industry to Embrace Substantial Growth amid Chip Shortage

SHANGHAI, Aug 17 (SMM) - Due to the ship shortage, the delivery cycle of Q2 Broadcom Wi-Fi SoC has been extended from 26 weeks to 50 weeks. The mature process supply of Wi-Fi 5 main chips continues to be tight, and this trend may extend until next year.

However, it is an opportunity for WiFi-6 chip to accelerate its penetration in the industry. According to industry insiders, Wi-Fi 6 adopts advanced manufacturing process, and the supply is relatively loose, so the certainty of delivery is higher than Wi-Fi 5. This, coupled with the current growing demand, some end customers have switched the demand from Wi-Fi 5 products to Wi-Fi 6.

The industry has predicted that the WiFi-6 penetration rate will increase to 30%-40% this year. The annual penetration rate is expected to reach 50% amid significantly higher shipments of WiFi-6.

The end products and shipments of new Wi-Fi 6 have been surging since the beginning of this year. In early August, the Honor officially opened the sale of the Wi-Fi 6 router Honor 3SE. Before that, Xiaomi Redmi Wi-Fi 6 router AX3000 has also started pre-sale, and four Wi-Fi 6 routers under Asus will also be on sale soon. Data show that since the advent of Wi-Fi 6 router products in 2020, Wi-Fi 6 products have a market share of more than 30%. It is expected that the annual delivery of Wi-Fi 6 chips in 2022 will exceed 1 billion units, and 56% of new end models will support Wi-Fi 6. Wi-Fi 6 is expected to become the mainstream standard by 2024.

Wi-Fi technology has basically undergone a communication protocol upgrade in 5-6 years, and each upgrade puts forward higher requirements for data throughput, transmission distance, transmission power of the underlying radio frequency technology, and linearity. Compared with the previous generations, Wi-Fi 6 significantly improves transmission efficiency and reduces latency. The general consensus in the industry is that with the start of the Internet of Everything era, Wi-Fi 6 and 5G will complement each other by virtue of their respective technical advantages and meet the requirements of "high bandwidth, low latency, and extensive connection".

Huaxi Securities pointed out that Wi-Fi 6 is expected to drive the entire industry's upgrading, and chips, modules, applications and other links will all benefit from this new cycle.