Worldwide subscriptions of 5G networks are predicted to reach half a billion in 2022, according to a new mobility report from Ericsson which says that the Asia Pacific will be the second fastest growing region for 5G after North America.
Ericsson says 25% of all subscriptions will be 5G in North America in 2022, representing the highest market penetration in the world.
In the Asia Pacific region, including Australia, 10% of all subscriptions are forecast to be 5G in 2022.
By the end of 2016, Ericsson says there will be 3.9 billion smartphone subscriptions, with almost 90% of these subscriptions registered on WCDMA/HSPA and LTE networks.
{loadposition peter}And, by 2022, the number of smartphone subscriptions is forecast to reach 6.8 billion, with more than 95% of the subscriptions registered on WCDMA/HSPA, LTE and 5G networks.
"Almost 90% of smartphone subscriptions are on 3G and 4G networks today and standardised 5G networks are expected to be available in 2020,” says Ulf Ewaldsson, Chief Strategy and Technology Officer, Ericsson.
“We are already seeing a great interest among operators in launching pre-standard 5G networks. 5G will accelerate the digital transformation in many industries, enabling new use cases in areas such as IoT, automation, transport and big data," Ewaldsson says.
The Ericsson report also forecasts that in 2022, there will be 8.9 billion mobile subscriptions, of which 90% will be for mobile broadband. – and there will be 6.1 billion unique subscribers.
As of Q3 2016, 84 million new mobile subscriptions were added during the quarter to reach a total of 7.5 billion, growing at around 3% year-on-year.
The report reveals that India grew the most in terms of net additions during the quarter (+15 million), followed by China (+14 million), Indonesia (+6 million), Myanmar (+4 million) and the Philippines (+4 million).
And, Ericsson says that mobile broadband subscriptions are growing by around 25% year-on-year, increasing by approximately 190 million in Q3 2016 alone, with the total number of mobile broadband subscriptions now around 4.1 billion.
Mobile data traffic continues to grow, driven both by increased smartphone subscriptions and a continued increase in average data volume per subscription, which Ericsson says is fuelled primarily by more viewing of video content.
In Q3 2016, data traffic grew around 10% quarter-on-quarter and 50% year-on-year.
Ericsson also reports:
• Mobile video traffic is increasingly dominant: Mobile video traffic is forecast to grow by around 50% annually through 2022 to account for nearly 75% of all mobile data traffic. Social networking is the second biggest data traffic type after video, forecast to grow by 39% annually over the coming six years
• Live streaming joins social media: Consumers are increasingly using live video streaming apps to interact with friends, family and followers. Around one in five smartphone users in the US express an interest in live video broadcasting, with twice as many smartphone users in high growth markets like India, Indonesia, Brazil and Oman who are interested in such apps
• IoT in focus: Around 29 billion connected devices are forecast by 2022, of which around 18 billion will be related to IoT. Included in the latest edition of the Ericsson Mobility Report is a deeper look into IoT, with three feature articles with different perspectives on IoT and its transformational potential. Two articles are co-written with operators that have built IoT solutions around their core assets, creating additional business value. The third article explores the cellular networks' capabilities to support a realistic massive IoT use case scenario.