Skip to main content

Global 5G Network Connections will Reach 1.5B by 2025

While 2019 was the year that fifth-generation (5G) wireless services were deployed across the globe, this is just the beginning of the new trend. So far, launches in North America, West Europe and the Middle East created a small base of 5G customers, however, the technology gained significant traction within the Far East and China markets.

As a result of strategic foresight by the government, the early launch and fast customer adoption in South Korea clearly drove their 5G deployment leadership. By the end of the year, there were an estimated 4.5 million 5G users in the Far East market, roughly 80 percent of the global total, nearly all of them in South Korea.

5G Network Infrastructure Market Development

North America had the second-highest number of connections, reaching an estimated 800,000 users. West Europe is taking a more tentative approach, waiting to see how the technology develops and evolves, while some parts of the world lack the infrastructure to start on 5G for at least two years.

According to the latest market study by Juniper Research, the total number of 5G connections will reach 1.5 billion globally by 2025 -- that's rising from only 5 million connections in 2019. This trend represents an annual average growth rate of 150 percent over the next 6 years.

The research findings uncovered that growth from these 5G connections is a highly sought-after new revenue stream for telecom network operators. Juniper forecasts that 5G internet of things (IoT) connections must be considered as new connections that will not cannibalize existing network operator connectivity revenue from current 4G IoT technologies.


Juniper analysts urge mobile network operators to develop comprehensive value-added services to enable the IoT service users to manage their 5G connections. They now forecast that tools, such as network slicing and multi-access edge computing solutions, will be essential to attract the highest spending commercial IoT service users to use their 5G networks.

Juniper also forecasts that valued-added services will become crucial in the automotive and smart cities sectors. They have forecast that these sectors would account for approximately 70 percent of all 5G IoT connections by 2025, with higher than anticipated levels of device support for 5G radios accelerating the uptake of 5G connectivity.

The analyst research findings claimed that the initial high pricing of 5G connectivity in the IoT sector would likely dissuade all but the high-value IoT users. They have urged network operators to roll out holistic network management tools that complement the enhanced capabilities of 5G networks for IoT capabilities.

Outlook for 5G Infrastructure Return on Investment

"Management tools for the newly-enabled services are key for users managing large scale deployments. We believe that only 5 percent of 5G connections will be attributable to the IoT, but as these are newly enabled connections, operators must view them as essential to securing a return on their 5G investment," said Andrew Knighton, Associate Analyst at Juniper Research.

When deployed, 5G networks will need to be scalable and intelligently efficient to support billions of IoT devices. A sizeable number of sensing devices are already in place and several uses for the IoT have emerged from these.

That said, due to the significant cost associated with providing adequate coverage for 5G network applications, telecom service providers must fully explore all viable sources of high-margin service revenue.

Popular posts from this blog

Open Banking Usage to Grow by 470 Percent

The Open Banking business model has been advantageous for Third-Party Providers (TPPs), helping them to extend their offerings into other areas of financial services with new capabilities. Open Banking is also advantageous for traditional banking institutions, despite the perceived loss of custodianship over their data, by providing greater accessibility to more bank services. Furthermore, Open Banking can help serve Mobile Internet providers that are able to leverage it to create tailored services according to customers’ preferences and/or economic limitations. Open Banking Market Development Since traditional banking services are made more convenient by TPPs via greater data access, customers can proactively manage their finances and shape the development of new financial offerings. This is particularly noticeable in the realm of Digital Payments, where retail merchants and customers transact through eCommerce, which has the greatest number of use cases for Open Banking. These includ

Mobile Device Market Still Awaiting Recovery

The mobile devices market has experienced three years of unpredictable demand. The global pandemic, geopolitical pressures, supply chain issues, and macroeconomic headwinds have hindered the sector's consistent growth potential. This extremely challenging environment has dramatically affected both demand and supply chains. It has led to subsequent inflationary pressures, leading to a worsening global cost of living crisis suppressing growth and confidence in the sector. In tandem, mobile device industry stakeholders have become more cautious triggering market uncertainties. Mobile Device Market Development Operating under such a backdrop, the development of mobile device ecosystems and vendor landscapes have been impacted severely. Many of these market pressures persisted throughout 2022 and now into 2023, borne chiefly by the smartphone market. According to the latest worldwide market study by ABI Research, worldwide smartphone shipments in 2022 declined 9.6 percent Year-over-Year

Digital Talent Demand Exceeds Supply in Asia-Pac

Even the savviest CEO's desire for a digital transformation advantage has to face the global market reality -- there simply isn't enough skilled and experienced talent available to meet demand. According to the latest market study by IDC, around 60-80 percent of Asia-Pacific (AP) organizations find it "difficult" or "extremely difficult" to fill many IT roles -- including cybersecurity, software development, and data insight professionals. Major consequences of the skills shortage are increased workload on remaining digital business and IT employees, increased security risks, and loss of "hard-to-replace" critical transformation knowledge. Digital Business Talent Market Development Although big tech companies' layoffs are making headlines, they are not representative of the overall global marketplace. Ongoing difficulty to fill key practitioner vacancies is still among the top issues faced by leaders across industries. "Skills are difficul