India’s 5G base to hit 270 mn, 23% penetration by 2024-end: Ericsson

In India, 5G subscription penetration is expected to have doubled to 270 million during 2024, reaching a penetration of 23% at the end of the year, Swedish telecom gear maker Ericsson has said in its latest mobility report.

The report says 5G adoption in India is growing rapidly, given the 5G coverage of over 90% and the availability of affordable 5G services. "5G subscriptions are projected to reach over 270 million by the end of 2024, accounting for 23% of the total mobile subscriptions in the region," says the report titled Ericsson Mobility Report November 2024.

It says India’s 5G subscriptions are expected to reach around 970 million by the end of 2030, accounting for 74% of mobile subscriptions. "Enhanced mobile broadband and FWA have emerged as the initial 5G use cases. Increased availability of 5G FWA customer premises equipment (CPE) is likely to spur the growth of 5G FWA connections. 4G continues to be the dominant subscription type, contributing 54% of the total mobile subscriptions currently."

Comparatively, 5G adoption in North America is expected to grow to 316 million are expected at the year’s end. And by 2030, around 436 million, which would account for 91% of mobile subscriptions. Based on the strong 5G uptake, 4G subscriptions are forecast to decline from 640 million in 2024 to 240 million in 2030.

The 40-page report says leading service providers are deploying 5G SA (standalone) networks as part of their journey to enabling service differentiation and performance-based business models. "More than 60 service providers deployed or launched public 5G SA networks on mid-and low-band spectrum by the end of September 2024."

North America, China, Southeast Asia and Australia had early, major deployments during 2020–2022, but deployments are now also ongoing in Latin America, the Gulf Cooperation Council countries and South Africa. In Europe, commercial launches have taken place in more than 10 countries, including Germany, the UK, Italy and Spain.

5G SA subscribers to reach 1.2 bn in 2024

The proportion of 5G SA devices among all announced 5G devices is increasing, reaching around 70% by the end of June 2024, says the report. Smartphones make up 60% of the announced, but not launched, 5G devices with stated 5G SA support, with a growing number featuring a default SA-enabled setting, shows the data.

By the end of 2024, there will be an estimated 1.2 billion 5G SA mobile subscriptions worldwide, with the majority– around 1.1 billion – in China and India, the report estimates, adding that by 2030, the global number of 5G SA subscriptions is projected to reach around 3.6 billion. “5G is now expected to become the dominant mobile access technology by subscription in 2027. This exceeds earlier predictions that it would overtake 4G in 2028, driven partly by growth in China and India."

What are the advantages of 5G SA?

The 5G SA network deployments provide a substantial competitive advantage for service providers that leverage its full benefits and potential. The 5G SA core is flexible and programmable, allowing services to be designed based on customers’ requirements, with assured quality of service (QoS), security and adaptability.

5G SA benefits include faster connection times (lower latency) and programmability for more agile creation of services and network slices. A deployed 5G SA network is also a prerequisite for 5G IoT use cases based on reduced capability (RedCap) technolology.