India’s 5G subscriptions to reach 840 mn by 2029, says Ericsson study

The aggressive 5G deployment by Reliance Jio and Bharti Airtel drove the 5G subscriber base to up to 119 million by the end of 2023.

India’s 5G subscriptions are projected to reach around 840 million by the end of 2029, accounting for 65 percent of mobile subscriptions in the region, Swedish telecom gear maker Ericsson said in its latest Mobility report.

The aggressive 5G deployment by Reliance Jio and Bharti Airtel drove the 5G subscriber base to up to 119 million by the end of 2023.

India has made large-scale mid-band deployments, covering over 90 percent of the population by the end of 2023 with 5G penetration reaching 10 percent.

Ericsson said that total mobile subscriptions in the region are estimated to grow to 1.3 billion in 2029.

The gear maker said that enhanced mobile broadband and FWA are emerging as initial 5G use cases.

4G continues to be the dominant subscription type driving connectivity and fueling data growth. However, based on strong 5G uptake, 4G subscriptions are forecast to decline from 740 million in 2023 to 410 million by 2029, the vendor said in its latest report.

During the last year, 18 service providers in emerging markets have launched FWA services over 5G, representing around 65 percent of global launches. These launches have taken place in highly populated countries such as India, Brazil and Nigeria.

As of April this year, 54 out of 128 service providers with 5G FWA offerings are in emerging markets, representing 42 percent of all global 5G FWA service providers.

Two service providers, one in Finland and the other in India (Reliance Jio), have introduced premium 5G FWA connectivity services enabled by 5G standalone (SA). These FWA services utilize network slicing to deliver reliable, assured services, for example, a high-performance experience such as 8K video.

From 130 million at the end of 2023, FWA connections worldwide are projected to increase to 330 million by 2029. Almost half of global FWA connections will be in Asia-Pacific by 2029.

The number of FWA connections in Asia-Pacific is expected to triple, increasing its share of global FWA connections from 39 to 48 percent by 2029.

“The forecast has taken the high ambitions of 5G FWA in emerging markets into account, both in terms of increasing the number of connections and the share of 5G FWA connections. Higher volumes of 5G FWA in large, high-growth countries, such as India, have the potential to drive economies of scale for the overall 5G FWA ecosystem, resulting in affordable customer premises equipment (CPE) that will have a positive impact across low-income markets,” Ericsson said.