4G connections to reach 41% by 2020

4G globally is planned to double from present 23% to reach 41% by 2020

Mobile broadband connection globally (3G and 4G) accounted for 55% of total connection in 2016 to 75% by connection base in 2020. On the other hand 5G is forecast to cover around a third of the global population by 2025, with adoption reaching one 1.1 billion connections.

Total mobile revenues reached $1.05 trillion in 2016, up 2.2% on 2015, making the second consecutive year of rising revenue growth thanks to digital platform. Operators are creating digital platform connects everyone and everything. Players across the broader mobile ecosystem have already opened open innovative strategies particularly in the app economy and the mobile internet.

In 2016, mobile economy generated 4.4% of GDP globally, equivalent to around $3.3 trillion of economic value. Mobile ecosystem has also supported approximately 28 million jobs.

Mobile broadband  networks continues  to gain momentum and is driven by improved coverage of higher speed networks, attractively priced data tariffs and greater availability and affordability of smartphones. At the and 2014 mobile broadband connections accounted for 25% of total connection (excluding M2M). This increased to 55% by the end of 2016, with 4 billion mobile broadband connections.

An additional 2.3 billion mobile connection are forecast between 2016 and 2020. 4G now reaches 60% of the population up from 50% in 2015 and 11% in 2012. In developing world, 50% of the population is covered by 4G which is expected to increase to almost 70% by 2020. In developed world, the coverage is at 93% of the population which is expected to improve to 95% by 2020.

The first commercial 5G cellular networks will launch in late 2019 and early 2020. These networks will be built on evolved LTE (Release 15) and will offer increased performance. 5G’s second phase based on LTE release 16, will deliver mobile data over mmw frequencies in facilitating a massive increase in bandwidth potential. 5G connections (excluding cellular M2M) are anticipated to reach 1.1 billion by 2025. 

    Pravin Prashant 
pravin@varindia.com