India Will Have 350 Million 5G Connections By 2026, Says Ericsson

Even though the telecom operators are not willing to buy the 5G spectrum due to high pricing, Ericsson says that India will have 350 million 5G connections by the end of 2026. The means 5G users will capture 27 percent of the market of the total market.

Notably, this report comes after the Department of Telecommunication (DoT) is planning to auction only 4G airwaves in the coming months. This seems that DoT might sell 5G airwaves in 2022.

"The companies and countries taking an active role in shaping and securing the 5G ecosystem in the early years have great potential to lead use case scaling once the market takes off," Nitin Bansal, Head of Network Solutions for the Market Area Southeast Asia, Oceania and India said.

LTE Will Continue To Dominate Until 2026

The report said that India is likely to pick up the 5G pace; however, LTE might become dominant until the end of 2026, as per Ericsson's report. The Swedish telecom gear maker also says that broadband technologies accounted for 63 percent of mobile subscriptions by the end of this year. It said that the LTE might capture 91 percent of the mobile broadband market by 2026 after the total number will reach 1.2 billion.

The report highlighted that average monthly data usage per user or smartphone might continue to grow as people are working from home due to Covid-19. "Low prices for mobile broadband services, affordable smartphones, and increased time spent by people online all contribute to monthly usage growth in India. Accordingly, total traffic is projected to quadruple in India, reaching 35EB per month in 2026," States PatrikCerwall, Head of Strategic Marketing Insights and Editor of Ericsson Mobility Report said. Furthermore, Ericsson said that the average traffic per smartphone is likely to increase further by 2026.