5G subscriptions to reach half a billion in 2022, reports Ericsson

New Delhi [India], Nov 16 : According to the latest edition of the Ericsson Mobility Report there will be 550 million 5G subscriptions in by the year 2022, wherein it also mentions that North America will lead the way in uptake of 5G subscriptions.

However, it also mentions Asia Pacific to be the second fastest growing region for 5G subscriptions with 10 percent of all subscriptions being 5G in 2022.

By the end of 2016, there will be 3.9 billion smartphone subscriptions. "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," said Chief Strategy and Technology Officer Ericsson, Ulf Ewaldsson.

The latest Ericsson Mobility Report also forecasts that in 2022 there will be 8.9 billion mobile subscriptions, of which 90 percent will be for mobile broadband.

Talking about the third quarter in 2016, 84 million new mobile subscriptions were added during the quarter to reach a total of 7.5 billion.

Amongst these, India grew the most in terms of net additions during the quarter, followed by China, Indonesia, Myanmar and the Philippines.

Mobile broadband subscriptions are growing by around 25 percent year-on-year, increasing by approximately 190 million in Q3 2016 alone.

The total number of mobile broadband subscriptions is now around 4.1 billion. Further the report highlights that the mobile video traffic is increasingly dominant. Its forecast is to grow by around 50 percent annually through 2022 to account for nearly 75 percent of all mobile data traffic.

Social networking is the second biggest data traffic type after video, forecast to grow by 39 percent annually over the coming six years.

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.

Source: ANI