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Marching Towards 5G: 150 M Subscriptions By 2021

Marching Towards 5G: 150 M Subscriptions By 2021South Korea, Japan, China and the US are predicted to experience the fastest 5G subscription uptake, with 5G to connect new types of devices, enabling new use cases related to the Internet of Things.

Meanwhile, increased mobile video consumption is fuelling a rise in traffic volumes around the world. In the Asia Pacific, Ericsson has forecast monthly data traffic per smartphone will rise from 1 GB this year to 6.9 GB in 2021, while in North America it will rise from 3 GB to 22 GB.

In many networks today, YouTube accounts for up to 70 per cent of all video traffic, while Netflix’s share of video traffic can reach as high as 20 per cent in markets where it is available. In 2021, video is forecast to account for 70 per cent of total mobile traffic.

“With 20 new mobile broadband subscriptions activated every second, global increase in mobile subscriptions is another clear driver for data traffic growth,” Ericsson states.

“As of now, there are the same amount of mobile subscriptions as there are people on the planet – in 2016, we will reach the four billion mark for smartphone subscriptions alone.”

Among the report’s other findings, China will overtake the US as the world’s largest LTE market by the end of the year, while Africa is becoming increasingly connected, with its number of mobile subscriptions set to reach 1 billion by the end of the year, double what it was five years ago.

From smart transport to smart grids, the report additionally looks at the role ICT can play in enabling savings in energy consumption and reducing greenhouse gas emissions across all other industrial sectors, finding total emissions reduction could be up to 10 gigatonnes of CO2e, representing about 15 per cent of global emissions, in 2030.