Industry
India's 5G report card one year on, in charts
Summary
- A year since the 5G rollout began in India, the country has emerged as one of the fastest-growing markets for the new-gen mobile network. Mint looks at the present and future of 5G in charts and numbers
It’s been a year since the rollout of 5G technology began in India. In this time the country has emerged as one of the fastest-growing 5G markets. The number of 5G users now stands at over 100 million, according to the country's top two telecom companies, Reliance Jio and Bharti Airtel, which have driven the rollout. That's about a sixth of India’s 600 million smartphone users.
The infrastructure needed to support 5G has been rolled out at a rapid pace. India has over 330,000 5G base transceiver stations (BTS), according to data from the department of telecommunications (DoT). Uttar Pradesh, Maharashtra, Tamil Nadu, Gujarat and Karnataka are the five states with the highest number of 5G BTS deployed. Uttar Pradesh (35,916) overtook Maharashtra in August as the state with the highest number of 5G radios. Maharashtra was the frontrunner all through this year, showed DoT data.
5G has helped the country make a giant leap in terms of overall internet speed. The country has jumped a stunning 72 places to 47th globally in mobile download speeds, as per Ookla data. “The country’s speed performance has seen a 3.59 times increase since the introduction of 5G," said the Seattle-headquartered company. India is also among the five countries with the fastest 5G internet speeds. With a median speed of 164.26 Mbps it is only behind South Korea and Taiwan, according to crowdsourced data from Speedcheck.
Meanwhile, the rollout holds out promise for Indian industries as well. 5G is expected to power up to 2% of India’s GDP, amounting to $180 billion by 2030, according to Nasscom. A recent TRAI consultation paper said sectors that will benefit the most from largescale 5G adoption include healthcare, energy and utilities, manufacturing, and retail.
‘Customer is king’ and Indian 5G consumers prove that. Even as the tech makes steady inroads, users in India are taking full advantage of 5G offers to engage with apps that offer enhanced streaming video, HD video calling, mobile gaming, AR and more. The share is higher than that of early adopters in other prominent 5G markets, said a recent report by Ericsson ConsumerLab. Indian 5G users reported a 30% increase in satisfaction compared to 4G users.
