5G has finally made its mark on a wide range of applications and services, most notably in the consumer market. However, larger revenue opportunities will arise from targeting enterprise verticals. ABI Research forecasts that by 2028, manufacturing will account for nearly a quarter of total generated revenue in the 5G Ultra Low Latency Use Cases (URLLC) market. The capacity to establish a massive wireless sensor network or implement AR/VR applications for predictive monitoring makes 5G's wireless connectivity capabilities a perfect technological fit for growth in manufacturing. Therefore, it is critical for all parties involved to understand how to optimize 5G for their business strategies. 

Industrial manufacturing is undoubtedly a strong economic catalyst in both the United States and China. Artificial Intelligence represents an opportunity to not only revolutionize the industrial manufacturing space, but drive economic transformation and growth as well. 

The market for traditional SIM cards, currently on the decline, is ceding ground to the eSIM ecosystem. 5.53 billion SIM cards were shipped in 2018, compared to 5.54 billion in 2017. Challenging market conditions are expected to facilitate another shipment decrease of -0.1%, likely translating into another market contraction in 2019 due to several factors.

The launch of the first wave of 5G commercial services has been crowned a great success, with credit going to Qualcomm and its partners for the impressive milestones they have managed to achieve with 5G just 6 months after the first commercial launch of enhanced Mobile Broadband (eMBB) services. They have rolled out 30+ 5G networks around the world, supported by 20+ device models, the majority of which are powered by Qualcomm chipsets. This is worthy of a well-deserved celebration during the Qualcomm 5G Summit this week.

Novel technologies and markets share very similar patterns: a hype cycle, followed by a steep decline as realistic barriers and obstacles become more apparent, ultimately followed by substantial growth as those barriers are overcome. The speed at which these new technologies and markets catch on is based on an amalgamation of near infinite factors, with the fastest growing opportunities often the ones with the most objective, understandable value in usage outweighing and outpacing those barriers.