GSMA: U.S and Canada to lead in 5G migration

Coinciding with the opening of Mobile World Congress Americas (#MWCA18) in Los Angeles, the GSMA issued a prediction that the U.S. and Canada will experience the quickest adoption of 5G, ahead of other developed economies in Western Europe and Asia. A new GSMA report forecasts that almost half of all mobile connections in North America will be running on 5G networks by 2025.

Specifically, the report predicts there will be around 200 million 5G mobile connections in the USA and Canada by 2025, representing 49 percent of the projected total market by that point. The report also calculates that North America’s mobile ecosystem generated more than $830 billion in economic value last year, equivalent to 4 percent of the region’s GDP. 4G accounted for 70 percent of connections in the U.S. and Canada in 2017.

“Mobile operators in North America are now making record levels of investment to upgrade networks and acquire spectrum as we commence the 5G era,” commented Mats Granryd, Director General of the GSMA. “With nationwide mobile broadband coverage and high levels of smartphone ownership, consumers across the US and Canada are highly engaged and early adopters of new types of digital service and content – and we therefore expect these two markets to migrate rapidly over to new 5G networks over the coming years.”

“North American mobile operators are offsetting the decline of many traditional mobile services by successfully unlocking new revenue opportunities in content, IoT and – very soon – 5G,” added Granryd. “The early 5G use cases in the region are likely to focus on the provision of enhanced mobile broadband offerings to the consumer market, while services in areas such as autonomous vehicles, industrial and vehicular automation, remote medical surgery, and advanced AR and VR, will gain scale soon after.”

http://www.gsma.com/mobileeconomy/northamerica/