Telecom equipment maker Ericsson released its Mobility Report on Thursday, predicting that India will have more than 1 billion 5G subscriptions by the end of 2031, reaching 79% of total mobile subscriptions. The report also said that 5G adoption is growing fast, with 394 million 5G subscriptions expected by the end of 2025, making up 32% of all mobile subscriptions.
“The mobile data traffic per active smartphone in India stands at 36 GB per month, the highest in the world and is expected to grow to 65 GB per month by 2031. 5G is already today serving as the critical infrastructure for driving digitalization in the country,” said Nitin Bansal, MD, Ericsson India.
What is fuelling growth?
The report highlighted that affordable 5G FWA (Fixed Wireless Access) equipment and high data usage from FWA users are driving India’s data traffic growth. Enhanced mobile broadband is expected to be the main 5G use case, with around 6.4 billion 5G subscriptions globally by 2031, making up about two-thirds of all mobile subscriptions. Of these, 4.1 billion (65%) are expected to be 5G Standalone (5G SA).
In 2025 alone, 5G subscriptions worldwide are expected to reach 2.9 billion, roughly one-third of all mobile subscriptions, which is an increase of 600 million from the previous year. By the end of 2025, 50% of the global population outside mainland China is expected to have 5G coverage.
Data traffic and 5G usage
Mobile network data traffic grew 20% between Q3 2024 and Q3 2025, slightly higher than expected, driven by China and India. Annual growth is forecast at 16% through 2031. 5G networks are expected to carry 43% of all mobile data by the end of 2025, up from 34% last year, and will reach 83% by 2031.
Fixed Wireless Access (FWA) continues to grow as a 5G use case, with 1.4 billion people globally expected to use FWA broadband by 2031, 90% of them via 5G. Ericsson identified 159 providers offering 5G FWA, which is about 65% of all FWA providers. The number of providers using speed-based tariffs increased from 43% to 54% since last year.
5G standalone growth and network slicing
Deployments of 5G SA networks have grown, allowing service providers to offer differentiated connectivity using network slicing, where parts of the network are dedicated to specific customer use cases. Over 90 service providers have launched or soft-launched 5G SA networks, an increase of 30 providers from last year. Researchers identified 118 cases of network slicing across 56 service providers, with 65 cases already in commercial use for consumer or enterprise customers. Of these, 21 were launched in 2025 alone.
Looking ahead
The November 2025 report covers forecasts up to 2031, including the first expected commercial 6G deployments. Based on past mobile generation trends, 6G launches are expected first in the US, Japan, South Korea, China, India, and some Gulf countries. Global 6G subscriptions could reach 180 million by 2031, not counting AI-enabled IoT devices. Europe is expected to launch 6G about a year later than other countries, due to later 5G SA deployments.
(Article by Rakesh Kumar of The New Indian Express)
