Key Points

The report stated that this significant growth will require a need for robust 5G infrastructure in the country. The report further adds that as of 2024, 4G remains the dominant subscription type with 53 per cent of the subscribers. It is forecast to decline to 230 million subscriptions by 2030, as users continue migrating to 5G.

The sharp increase is driven by growing 5G internet penetration, affordable smartphones, and a rising appetite for video and digital services across urban and rural markets.

Underpinned by strong population coverage, increasing data consumption, and accelerating Fixed Wireless Access (FWA) deployments, 5G penetration will continue with robust growth.

By December 2024, 5G subscriptions in the country reached 290 million, representing 24 per cent of total mobile subscriptions. This figure is projected to climb to around 980 million by 2030, accounting for 75 per cent of all mobile subscriptions.

Nitin Bansal, Managing Director, Ericsson India, said, "At Ericsson, we are proud to support the country's digitalisation based on the strong 4G and 5G infrastructure that we have set up in the country together with our partners, the communication service providers, that is enabling connectivity and driving inclusive growth in the country."

On the global front, the 5G subscriptions are forecast to reach 6.3 billion by 2030, and will make up two-thirds of all mobile subscriptions.

It is projected that Western Europe will have the highest 5G subscription penetration in 2030 at 93 per cent, followed closely by North America at 91 per cent and the Global Capability Centres (GCC) at 90 per cent.

The report adds that generative artificial intelligence (GenAI) is increasingly becoming a significant selling point for smartphones. Efforts are being made to expand AI beyond the high-end segment to enable the services for a broader market.

With the growth of AI applications and model complexity, tasks will be computed both on the device and in the network. This will put uplink capabilities and latency more into the focus of both application service providers and communication service providers, thereby adding to 5G subscriptions, it said.

India has made large-scale mid-band deployments and reached around 95 per cent of its population covered by 5G network by 2024 end.

According to the government data, since its launch in October 2022, 5G services have been rolled out in all states/UTs across the country and presently it is available in 99.6 per cent of the districts in the country.

As of February 28 of the current year, 4.69 lakh 5G Base Transceiver Stations (BTSs) have been installed by the Telecom Service Providers (TSPs) across the country, which is one of the fastest rollouts of the 5G network anywhere in the world.

- ANI