Two-thirds of the world’s mobile connections will be running on 4G and 5G networks by 2025, according to the new 2018 edition of the GSMA’s ‘Mobile Economy’ report, published today at Mobile World Congress. It is forecast that 4G will account for 53 percent of global mobile connections by 2025 (up from 29 percent in 2017), while 5G networks will grow to account for a further 14 percent, following the launch of the first commercial 5G networks this year.

The report also measures the growth of the Internet of Things (IoT) over this period and the mobile industry’s increasing role in contributing to economic growth and social development.

“We are at the dawn of a new era in mobile with the imminent launch of the first 5G networks and the Internet of Things poised to further transform the way we live and work,” said Mats Granryd, Director General of the GSMA. “Meanwhile, operators continue to expand and upgrade their 4G networks in order to provide an evolutionary path into the 5G era, and also evolve their offerings to unlock new revenue streams in areas such as e-commerce, content, lifestyle, advertising and marketing, and identity and security.

“As the mobile industry moves into the 5G era, the need for pro-investment, pro-innovation policies and modernised regulatory regimes have never been greater,” Granryd added. “Streamlined regulation and further policy developments in three main areas – spectrum, infrastructure and economics – are key to realizing the full potential of 5G for consumers, society and industry.”

Growth in 4G, 5G and the Internet of Things

In under a decade, since the first commercial 4G networks were launched, 4G is on track to become the world’s leading mobile network technology by next year and to account for more than half (53 percent) of global connections by 2025. During this period, operators will also be investing in new 5G networks; beginning this year, the first wave of 5G launches will occur in North America and major markets across Asia and Europe. 5G connections are forecast to reach 1.2 billion by 2025, accounting for 14 per cent of the total connections at that time.

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Meanwhile, growth in the IoT will be driven by a proliferation of use cases for smart homes, cities, buildings and enterprises. GSMA Intelligence forecasts that the number of IoT connections (cellular² and non-cellular) will increase more than threefold between 2017 and 2025, reaching 25 billion. To date, 23 mobile operators have commercially launched 41 Mobile IoT networks worldwide using the NB-IoT and LTE-M standards.

The mobile industry signed up its 5 billionth unique mobile subscriber³ last year and is forecast to add almost another billion by 2025, reaching 5.9 billion subscribers – equivalent to 71 percent of the world’s expected population by that point. Subscriber growth over this period will be driven by developing countries, particularly Bangladesh, China, India, Indonesia and Pakistan, as well as markets across Sub-Saharan Africa and Latin America. Further, by 2025, it is expected that 5 billion subscribers will be using their mobile phones to access the internet, up from 3.3 billion in 2017.

A Growing Contributor to the Economy and Social Development

The mobile ecosystem accounted for 4.5 percent of global GDP globally in 2017, a contribution equivalent to $3.6 trillion in economic value added⁴. This contribution is forecast to reach $4.6 trillion, or 5 percent of GDP, by 2022 as countries around the globe increasingly benefit from the improvements in productivity and efficiency brought about by increased take-up of mobile services and M2M/IoT solutions. In 2017, the wider mobile ecosystem also supported 29 million jobs (directly and indirectly) and made a substantial contribution to the funding of the public sector; almost $500 billion was raised through general taxation, plus a further $25 billion via mobile spectrum auctions.

The report highlights that, in addition to contributing to economic growth, mobile technology is increasingly being used to address the challenges of access, cost and quality of service in key sectors such as healthcare, agriculture, utilities, education and financial services. Following the mobile industry’s commitment to helping deliver the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) two years ago⁵, the report notes that the industry is making an important contribution across all 17 SDGs as a result of three key trends: better networks, greater connectivity and increased use of mobile-enabled services.

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