Ericsson forecasts 40% of the global population to have access to 5G services by the fall of 2024, with a massive 1.5bn connections projected to be powered by the new network technology by then.
In its recent Mobility Report, which included projected stats from fall-2018 to fall-2024, the vendor predicts there would be a constant surge on an earlier estimate that there would be 1bn 5G connections by the fall of 2023.
The new figure is corresponding to nearly 17% of the mobile connections around the world expected at the stipulated time.
Ericsson further revealed that North America would be the zone featuring the highest fraction of 5G mobile connections by the end of 2024, with a 55% penetration rate. North East Asia comes in next with a penetration rate of 43%, followed by Western Europe (29%).
Regardless of the brisk uptake rate of 5G, 4G is likely to stay the dominant access technology with 5.4bn connections by the stipulated date.
Ericsson said that the uptake of 5G subscription is likely to be faster as compared to LTE which, in turn, is the mobile communication technology that boasts the fastest subscription uptake yet.
During the last couple of weeks, numerous operators have claimed that the commercial launch of 5G mobile communication technology is being delayed due to a widespread lack of device availability.
In its report, Ericsson noted that it predicted a “strong” line-up of mobile phones supporting the 5G technology to be released in the second quarter of 2019.
However, Ericsson warned that though 5G would take off this year, it would not make it to the mass market until 2020 when the third-generation chipsets will be rolled out and numerous new devices will be up for grabs.
Moreover, the company predicts an increase by a multiple of 4 to 21GB per month in terms of average data used per mobile phone by the end of the stipulated period.
Compound global smartphone data traffic across all devices is also predicted to surge up to 136 exabytes per month during the same period – which will essentially be around five times higher than at fall-2018.
IoT surge
The report by Ericsson also states a rapid uptake of cellular IoT with connections around the world moving past the 4bn mark during 2024, reaching a massive 4.1bn by the end of that year.
The report further tipped that half of these cellular IoT connections would be in North East Asia. North America and Western Europe will trail considerably; however, they’ll still be amongst the top three largest cellular IoT consumers.
In a previous IoT breakdown, Ericsson said it predicted global connections to go past the 3.5bn mark during 2023.