While the iPhone 12 series supports 5G, Apple sells the mmWave variant of the devices only in the US. For the units sold in the rest of the world, the iPhone 12 only supports sub-6GHz 5G. That will change with the iPhone 13 series this year as Apple will be expanding its availability to more parts of the world.

Kuo says that with mmWave 5G adoption increasing in countries like Australia, Canada, Japan, and other EU countries, Apple will increase the availability of the mmWave iPhone 13 series to these countries as well.

mmWave 5G is capable of offering Gigabit+ speeds on mobile and lower latency leading to a better user experience. However, mmWave signals cannot travel far and are easily blocked by walls and other objects, thereby making them less effective than sub-6Ghz frequency.

For the iPhone 12, the mmWave shipment allocation is about 30-35%. For the iPhone 13 series, Kuo expects it to increase to 55-60%.

The mmWave iPhone 12 units feature a visible antenna line located on their right side. Apple is expected to continue with the same antenna design on the iPhone 13 series this year as well.

Previous reports indicate that Apple will be using Qualcomm’s more efficient and faster Snapdragon X60 5G modem on the iPhone 13 series. This should allow for faster 5G speeds and reduce the overall power consumption as well.

Other changes that are coming to the iPhone 13 series include 120Hz ProMotion LTPO OLED panels on the Pro models, bigger camera sensors with sensor-shift stabilization, bigger batteries, and a smaller notch.