5G SUBSCRIPTIONS FOR enhanced mobile broadband will hit 1.5 billion by the end of 2024, according to a new report by Ericsson.
The most recent edition of the Ericsson Mobility Report forecasts that 5G will cover more than 40% of the world’s population six years from now, making it the fastest generation of cellular technology to be rolled out on a global scale.
North America and North East Asia are expected to lead the 5G uptake, continues the report. In North America, 5G subscriptions are forecast to account for 55% of mobile subscriptions by the end of 2024, while in North East Asia, the corresponding forecast figure is more than 43%. In Western Europe, 5G is forecast to account for some 30% of mobile subscriptions in the region by end of 2024.
Key drivers for 5G deployment include increased network capacity, lower cost per gigabyte and new use case requirements.
The uptake of NB-IoT and Cat-M1 technologies is driving growth in the number of cellular IoT connections worldwide, the report adds. Of the 4.1 billion cellular IoT connections forecast for 2024, North East Asia is expected to account for 2.7 billion – a figure reflecting both the ambition and size of the cellular IoT market in this region.
Led by China, mobile data traffic shot up 79% between Q3 2017 and Q3 2018, though North America still has the highest data traffic per smartphone, set to reach 8.6 gigabytes per month by the end of this year – which can be compared to streaming HD video for over 12 hours monthly.
The report predicts that mobile data traffic will jump by a factor of five between 2018 and 2024, with 5G networks projected to carry 25% of mobile traffic by the end of the period.
