World should hit 1 billion 5G connections by the end of the year

The total number of 5G connections made in the world is expected to reach the symbolic mark of 1 billion by the end of this year, doubling the mark reached in 2021, and reaching 1.8 billion in 2025, a value that is equivalent to a fifth of global connections.

This is what the projection of the report “Mobile Economy 2022” (or “Mobile Economy 2022”) by the GSMA, an entity that brings together telecommunication companies, points out.

The study was released this Monday (28) in the wake of the Mobile World Congress (MWC) 2022, the main event in the sector, organized by the GSMA, which takes place this week in Barcelona.

The analysis counted a total of 70 markets and 176 operators with 5G offerings, or 20% of companies globally. The forecast is that the rise of the fifth generation of mobile telephony will remain until 2025 – the year in which the projection ends.

“We had a 40% increase in mobile traffic in the last year alone,” said Mats Granryd, Director General of the GSMA, in the opening keynote of the MWC.

5G will allow cellular connections with speeds up to a hundred times faster than current ones, and with lower latency (response time in the traffic of information). The antennas of this generation support a greater number of simultaneous devices, which makes Internet of Things applications possible.

4G, in turn, is at the peak of its market share and will reach the top, 60%, in 2023. According to the GSMA study, about 55% of mobile connections today use this technology. The number should go to 57% in 2025, with the advancement of the newest version.

The shrinkage is mainly due to the fact that the peak of 4G has been reached in some leading 5G markets such as China, South Korea and the US. In other regions, especially developing ones, fourth-generation connections still have room to grow.

The pandemic has not affected the growth of 5G, the analysis points out. In fact, in some cases, it helped.

“Operators accelerated the launches of telephone networks, with themselves and governments wanting to increase capacity at a time of high demand”, says the text.

With the arrival of 5G in Latin America and Sub-Saharan Africa, it is in every region of the world. The entry of developing countries into this market helped to boost this type of connections. In these locations, however, cost is still the obstacle, both in the purchase of mobile devices capable of connecting to the network and in the plans themselves.

In Brazil, the expectation is that “pure” 5G (in networks built exclusively for this technology) will cost R$250 per month upon arrival in 2023.

In Latin America, the forecast is that the number of people connected will continue to grow and go from 450 million (end of 2021) to 485 million in 2025 (or 73% of the population). Half of this increase will be from new users in Brazil or Mexico.

In the period, 4G should still be dominant and correspond to 70% of connections in 2025. 5G, however, gains strength, despite only having a presence in commercial networks in Colombia, Peru and Brazil.

BRAZIL

Today, the report points out, around 80% of mobile connections are via the 4G network in the country, the largest mobile telephony market in Latin America. In 2025, the figure should remain practically unchanged, but 5G takes the remaining 20% ​​– today, divided between older generations.

Expanding the 4G connection is part of the counterparts demanded by the federal government in the auction of frequencies that allow the implementation of 5G in the country, which had Claro, Vivo and Tim as the big winners.

So far, twelve capitals are ready to receive 5G, according to the Ministry of Communications. Coverage already reaches 15 cities with Claro and 8 with Vivo, according to the GSMA report.

The journalist traveled at the invitation of Huawei.