New Delhi, Jun 16 (PTI) India’s 5G subscriptions are projected to cross 1.1 billion by the tip of 2031, accounting for 81 per cent subscription penetration, in accordance to a report by Swedish telecom gear maker Ericsson.
On the finish of 2025, 5G subscriptions reached 430 million and accounted for 35 per cent of complete cell subscriptions, the Ericsson Mobility report stated.
India additionally continues to lead globally in cell knowledge consumption per smartphone — the common month-to-month utilization already at 37 GB is predicted to practically double to 70 GB by 2031.
The nation is witnessing fast 5G adoption, pushed by reasonably priced 5G gadgets, in depth community protection, and rising uptake of Fastened Wi-fi Entry (FWA) companies.
Uplink site visitors is rising quicker than downlink for a lot of service suppliers — in some cases, “considerably quicker”.
It famous that 5G adoption in India continues its development momentum, pushed by the provision of reasonably priced 5G-enabled smartphones and gadgets, expanded community protection throughout nearly all districts, and the rising rollout of 5G Fastened Wi-fi Entry (FWA) companies.
Whereas 4G stays the dominant expertise at 46 per cent, subscriptions are forecast to decline from round 570 million in 2025 to practically 160 million by 2031, as customers migrate to 5G, it said.
Nitin Bansal, Managing Director, Ericsson India, famous that India’s quickly rising 5G adoption is predicated on enhanced cell broadband.
“The sturdy and safe 5G infrastructure within the nation is driving inclusion, governance, and innovation at scale and is serving as a robust basis for Digital India,” he additional stated.
With out naming Airtel, the report drew consideration to “a major growth” the place a service supplier in India lately launched differentiated connectivity companies based mostly on community slicing for its postpaid 5G prospects, signaling the evolution of superior 5G use circumstances out there.
Globally, 5G cell subscriptions handed the three billion mark throughout the first quarter of 2026; 5G Standalone (SA) community slicing business choices from communications service suppliers proceed to develop considerably, whereas uplink cell knowledge site visitors development is already outpacing downlink for a lot of service suppliers.
The 162 million new 5G subscriptions added globally throughout the first quarter of 2026 introduced the full subscription to 3.1 billion subscriptions. This determine is predicted to develop quickly and is forecast to greater than double (to 6.4 billion) by the tip of 2031.
Some 390 service suppliers have launched business 5G companies to date — greater than 90 of which have launched 5G Standalone.
5G networks dealt with 48 per cent of all cell knowledge site visitors on the finish of 2025 — a degree anticipated to surge to 85 per cent by the tip of 2031.
Western Europe, North America, North East Asia and the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) nations are forecast to have 5G cell subscription adoption shut to, or above, 90 per cent by the tip of 2031, as per the Ericsson report.
The variety of business differentiated connectivity service choices based mostly on 5G SA community slicing from service suppliers — with the flexibility to ship assured high quality of service to be used circumstances by way of securing slices of the community, continues to develop at a tempo, Ericsson stated.
“With the upcoming transition to bodily AI, site visitors patterns will basically shift as we transfer from centralised fashions in knowledge centres to distributed, autonomous AI brokers embedded throughout our machine autos and cities, generally related by 5G,” Erik Ekudden, CTO, Ericsson, stated.
Velocity-based tariff plans for mounted wi-fi entry (FWA) additionally proceed to attraction to service suppliers as a structured monetisation technique concentrating on totally different market segments.
The share of FWA service suppliers providing the service over 5G has reached 71 per cent — up from 57 per cent in June 2025 — the biggest annual enhance in 4 years. Velocity-based tariff plans are actually supplied by 57 per cent of mounted wi-fi entry service suppliers — up from 51 per cent a yr in the past.
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