India to have 500 million 5G subscribers by 2027: Report

By 2027, India is estimated to have over 500 million 5G subscribers, accounting for roughly two-fifth of all mobile subscriptions in the country, the latest Ericsson Mobility Report on 5G said Tuesday. As of June 21, 4G contributes around 68 per cent of the total mobile subscriptions in India but its contribution is expected to drop to 55 per cent by 2027, it said.

In global terms, 5G is predicted to account for almost half of all subscriptions by 2027, topping 4.4 billion subscriptions.

The latest Ericsson Mobility Report - the 22nd edition of Ericsson’s network traffic insights and forecasts - also revealed that global mobile network data traffic doubled in the past two years.

This traffic growth was driven by increased smartphone and mobile broadband usage, as well as the digitalisation of society and industries.

The June 2022 Ericsson Mobility Report also verified that 5G is scaling faster than all previous mobile technology generations. About a quarter of the world’s population currently has access to 5G coverage. Some 70 million 5G subscriptions were added during the first quarter of 2022 alone. By 2027, about three-quarters of the world’s population will be able to access 5G, according to the report.

Fredrik Jejdling, Executive Vice President and Head of Networks, Ericsson, said, “The latest report confirms 5G as the fastest growing mobile technology generation ever, and Ericsson is playing a key role in making it happen. We work everyday with our customers and ecosystem partners around the world to ensure that more people, enterprises, industries, and societies enjoy the benefits of 5G connectivity as soon as possible.“

The report also highlighted the increasingly important role that Fixed Wireless Access (FWA) is playing in the delivery of broadband services. Ericsson predicts that the number of FWA connections will exceed 100 million in 2022, a figure that is forecast to more than double by 2027, reaching almost 230 million.

On the Internet of Things (IoT), the report notes that in 2021, broadband IoT (4G/5G) overtook 2G and 3G as the technology that connects the largest share of all cellular IoT connected devices, accounting for 44 per cent of all connections.