Shipments of Android smartphones with ToF sensors will boom this year

Digitimes Research predicts that we’re going to see a real boom this year in shipments of Android smartphones featuring 3D sensing technology. More and more manufacturers are adopting back-end time-of-flight (ToF) sensors, claims the research, which will lead to the feature possibly becoming a standard on flagship and high-end-mid-range models.

The report also mentions that, while there are several Chinese suppliers, smartphone manufacturers are still relying on imports when it comes to certain components, like “vertical-cavity surface emitting laser (VCSEL) devices, diffractive optics element (DOE) products and infrared CMOS image sensors”.

The OPPO Find X and Xiaomi Mi 8 Explorer are mentioned as the first Android devices to feature 3D sensing technology, quickly followed and adopted by Huawei on its Mate 20-series flagship. Digitimes Research predicts a total number of 20 million units shipped in 2019, all equipped with ToF sensors.