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CTA: 5G smartphones will ship 106M in 2021 as U.S. tech sales hit $487B

  • Posted byby Dean Takahashi
  • Updated
  • 5 min

More than 106 million 5G smartphones are expected to ship in 2021, and overall tech industry sales will reach $487 billion in 2021, according to the Consumer Technology Association, the trade group that puts on the CES trade show.

The 5G smartphone sales will generate $61 billion in revenue (up 404%), and shipments will be up 530% from 2020 as the big carriers promote their networks with deep phone discounts, said Rick Kowalski, director of industry analysis and business intelligence at the CTA, in an interview with VentureBeat.

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Written by

Dean Takahashi

Dean Takahashi is editorial director for GamesBeat. He has been a tech journalist since 1988, and he has covered games as a beat since 1996. He was lead writer for GamesBeat at VentureBeat from 2008 to April 2025. Prior to that, he wrote for the San Jose Mercury News, the Red Herring, the Wall Street Journal, the Los Angeles Times, and the Dallas Times-Herald. He is the author of two books, "Opening the Xbox" and "The Xbox 360 Uncloaked." He organizes the annual GamesBeat Next, GamesBeat Summit and GamesBeat Insider Series: Hollywood and Games conferences and is a frequent speaker at gaming and tech events. He lives in the San Francisco Bay Area.