According to a recent report generated by Global telecom industry body GSMA, India is expected to have 920 million unique mobile subscribers by 2025 of which 88 million would be subscribers with 5G connections.
“5G connections in India are forecast to reach 88 million by 2025…This will leave India trailing regional peers such as China, which is set to see almost 30 per cent of its total connection base on 5G by 2025,” the GSMA Intelligence report released in May said.
As revealed by the report, there were already almost 750 million unique mobile subscribers at the end of the year 2018, which however is expected to reach about 920 million by 2025.
“India alone will generate almost a quarter of the world’s new mobile subscribers over this period,” the report said.
According to GSMA, the in-time uptake of new 5G devices and services is supported by the data consumption pattern in India on 4G network.
However, the main factor behind the emergence of 5G ecosystem in India according to the report is the telecom operators’ ability to invest in network that requires favourable backing on policy and regulatory fronts.
As forecasted by GSMA, there will be a revenue growth for mobile market in India back again in the second half of 2019 that will continue to grow significantly till 2025 however market revenues will still be below than that of 2016, signalling about a slow & challenging market repair process.
Revenues for mobile market in India have declined year-on-year on quarterly basis since mid 2016 making India to have ‘one of the world’s lowest average revenue per person (ARPU)’.
According to the GSMA estimations, total mobile revenues in India have dropped by over 20 per cent during the period.
As revealed by telecom regulator Trai, the gross revenue of the telecom sector had declined 3.43 per cent year-on-year to Rs 58,991 crore in October-December period in 2018.
GSMA also talked about a survey of global mobile data pricing conducted in the final quarter of 2018 that included over 200 countries that highlighted India as the cheapest market among the countries surveyed.
“The average price for 1 GB of data during this period was Rs 18.5 (USD 0.26), compared to a global average price per gigabyte of USD 8.53. Lower tariffs and ARPU levels help drive affordability and are important elements in addressing the digital divide. However, at low levels they also affect the financial stability of the sector,” the report said.
To diminish financial constraints on telecom players, it was recommended by GSMA to reduce ‘license fee from 8 to 6 per cent and the spectrum fee from 3–8 per cent to 1 per cent.’
The report also said that with around 1 billion installed device, it is most probable for India to become the second largest smartphone market by 2025.
Source: Financial Express