Study projects 5G connections will account for 7% of global mobile connections by that year
Sales of 5G compatible handsets will exceed 300 million by 2025, according to a recent study by Strategy Analytics. The consultancy said that sales of 5G phones will begin in 2020.
According to the study, 5G connections will represent approximately 7% of total mobile connections globally by 2025.
“China’s 2020 5G launch plans brings it closer to early adopters in the US, South Korea and Japan, who are speeding up progress to meet the broadband access demands from the Olympic Games and competition of non-traditional players. In contrast, European operators are currently paying more attention to opportunities in IoT,” Guang Yang, Senior Analyst at Strategy Analytics, said.
“While the first commercial 5G handsets will appear in small numbers in 2020 in South Korea and Japan, from 2021 more countries including the US, UK, Sweden, UAE and China will see their own launches,” Strategy Analytics’ Director, Ken Hyers, said. “By 2022 tens of millions of 5G handsets will be sold, and as a proportion of total handset sales will reach low single digit percentages,” Hyers added.
The consultancy previously predicted that there will be 116 million 5G subscriptions in 2022, compared to nearly 2 million in 2020, the year in which the initial deployments of 5G technology are expected to occur.
Vodafone Germany improves voice quality on LTE networks
In other EMEA news, Vodafone Germany said it has become the first mobile operator in Europe to roll out ‘Vodafone Crystal Clear’ technology to improve the voice quality on its mobile network. The new service, which is based on Enhanced Voice Services (EVS) technology, has already been enabled across the operator’s entire 4G LTE network, which currently covers nearly 89% of the German population. Vodafone Germany also confirmed that it will begin marketing the first smartphones compatible with ‘Vodafone Crystal Clear’ technology in the next few weeks.
Vodafone Germany, a subsidiary of UK telecommunications group Vodafone, initially launched commercial LTE services in Germany in 2010 and currently offers this technology through spectrum in the 800MHz, 1800MHz and 2.6GHz bands.
Vodafone had also launched VoLTE services in Germany in 2015.
