LTE and 5G: Subscriptions Growth – 1Q 2021
By the end of Q1 2021 there were nearly 6.2 billion LTE subscriptions worldwide.
Just over 584 million LTE subscriptions were added in the preceding 12 months.
10.4% YoY growth.
LTE subscriptions now account for 63.8% of all global mobile subscriptions.
5G subscriptions grew by 36% in the first quarter of 2021 to reach nearly 298.4 million2 globally (representing 3.07% of the entire global mobile market).
MOBILE subscriptions forecast
According to its latest figures, globally Omdia forecasts there will be around 11.3 billion mobile subscriptions by the end of 2026.
LTE is expected to reach its peak point in terms of technology market share at the end of 2021 (at 64.5%), and to reach its peak point in terms of subscriber numbers at the end of 2022 (at 6.41 billion subscribers).
From 2023 the LTE market is forecast to start to decline slowly, as customers migrate to 5G.
Between end 2021 and end 2026, the share of the market represented by GSM subscriptions will fall from 12.2% to 4.0%, and the share represented by W-CDMA will decline from 16.3% to 8.2%.
By the end of 2026, 5G will account for 40.8% of the global market (at 4.62 billion subscriptions), although LTE will still represent the biggest share of the market at 46.8% of all global mobile subscriptions.
LTE and 5G: Subscriptions Growth – 1Q 2021
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