Global 5G subscriptions are set to reach the one billion milestone by mid-2023, with more than half of those connections coming from China, according to the latest projections from CCS Insight.
CCS Insight estimates that by 2025 China will account for more than four in ten 5G connections worldwide. The country’s early lead is expected to outpace other notable markets such as South Korea, Japan, and the United States, which have all been competing to pioneer commercial 5G deployments and attract the first wave of users.
While the European Union has ambitious plans for region-wide 5G roll-out, CCS Insight predicts Europe will only reach comparable levels of adoption roughly a year after China. European progress will be influenced by factors such as market fragmentation, spectrum allocation, and regulatory decisions.
The trajectory for 5G adoption is expected to mirror that of 4G LTE. By 2025, CCS Insight forecasts 2.6 billion 5G subscriptions, equivalent to more than one in five mobile connections worldwide. However, the analyst firm cautions that several uncertainties could shape the pace and pattern of growth. These include where and how operators build the large numbers of new base stations needed for coverage and capacity, unclear near-term business cases for some operators, and whether consumers will upgrade to 5G-capable smartphones quickly enough. In Europe, additional hurdles such as fragmented markets, limited spectrum availability, and regulatory influence may slow deployment.
“5G is about creating a network that can scale up and adapt to radically new applications,” said Geoff Blaber, VP Research Americas at CCS Insight. “For operators, network capacity is the near-term justification; the Internet of Things and mission-critical services may not see exponential growth in the next few years but they remain a central part of the vision for 5G.”
Blaber added that operators will need to strike a careful balance between investing in infrastructure and generating revenue from new services, managing the timing and scale of capital expenditure while seeking sustainable returns.
CCS Insight expects mobile broadband use on smartphones to remain the dominant form of 5G adoption. The firm forecasts that smartphone mobile broadband will still account for roughly 99% of total 5G connections by 2025, underscoring that consumer demand for faster mobile data will drive the early years of the technology’s expansion.