GSMA Intelligence: 5G is Inevitable Across the World

realme organized its inaugural realme 5G Summit today, in partnership with GSMA Intelligence, Counterpoint Research and Qualcomm.

At the occasion, Kalvin Bahia, Principal Economist, GSMA Intelligence, talked about how 5G is expanding across the world.

Increasing Mobile Connectivity over the Years

In his Keynote at the summit, Bahia talked about how the gap between the connected and the unconnected has reduced rapidly over the past few years. He said that there were 3.8 billion mobile internet users in 2019 in the world, which represents nearly half of the world's population.

Estimates suggested that the number will cross the 4 billion-mark some time in 2020. Further, in 2019, mobile networks covered 93% of the global population. However, there still remains a significant usage gap - around 3.4 billion people still don't use mobile internet.

Bahia also said that the usage gap, as described above, is 6 times as large as the coverage gap. That means that there are several other reasons besides connectivity for people to not use mobile internet.

Also, he described the disparity in how the connectivity has grown over the years. The low and middle income countries account for over 90% of unconnected and over 98% of uncovered population. Out of this, nearly 50% live in the Sub-Saharan Africa alone.

5G Spreading Fast Across the World

As per GSMA Intelligence data, 60 countries had launched 5G networks till April 2021. Out of these, 12 were in low and middle income countries, Bahia said. He said, "5G is inevitable across the world", while talking about the rate at which 5G is spreading. However, he also said that in the near future, not much 5G penetration will happen in the low and middle income countries, citing technology lags.

By the year 2025, China will see the most 5G penetration at 55%, followed by high income countries at 53%. The principal economist at GSMA Intelligence also said that this was subject to changes in use cases and demand.

Affordability Important in Swift 5G Adoption

The report cited affordability as the key reason. As in many low and middle income countries, a smartphone is still out of the reach of a significant percentage of the population. However, apart from affordability, there are also reasons such as literacy, safety concerns, network coverage, and so on.

Across the major markets, however, digital literacy remains the highest barrier. GSMA Intelligence reported at the summit that almost a third of the population can't use mobile internet because they don't know how to. This is especially pronounced in East Asia, South Asia and Africa, with 36% of its population being digitally illiterate. The report cited data from GSMA Intelligence Consumer Survey from 2018 and 2019.

However, things are looking on the up as smartphone prices are falling across the emerging markets. Primarily, smart feature phones are driving this phenomenon. JioPhone series is a prime example of this - a 4G feature phone priced at around $20 or less. In all the emerging markets except East Asia & Pacific, smartphones have become cheaper, driving adoption.

The price of mobile data is also important in this regard. Data prices have been going down in all the low and middle income countries. However, most of these countries are yet to come below the 2% of monthly GDP per capita target set by UN for mobile data affordability.

5G Will Boost Growth Post-Pandemic

COVID-19 has slapped the economies across the world silly. However, GSMA Intelligence said that 5G presents a good opportunity to push for faster growth in a world after the pandemic. The industry organization estimates that 5G will add $600 Billion to the world economy by 2030 - representing 2% income growth in the 2020s.

"It's going to be very important to ensure that 5G is planned in a way that it doesn't deepen the existing digital divide that we've seen", Bahia said.

He added, "This is going to be especially important in a post-pandemic world - we saw that the global economy contracted by 8% last year. So, in order to boost growth in a post-pandemic world, there's a vital role that 5G can play".