While adding new subscribers has become difficult due to saturation in most of the markets, the global subscriber base is still expected to rise by 600 million on account of new customer addition in India, China, Pakistan and Nigeria, global industry body GSMA said on Thursday.
According to the 'Mobile Economy 2020' report released by the GSMA, mobile services at the end of 2019 is estimated to be at 5.2 billion, accounting for 67 per cent of the global population.
"Adding new subscribers is increasingly difficult as markets have become saturated and the economics of reaching rural populations has become more difficult to justify in a challenging financial climate for mobile operators," the report said adding that despite this, there will be around 600 million new subscribers by 2025 -- mostly in India, China, Pakistan and Nigeria.
This will increase the subscriber base to 5.8 billion, accounting for 70 per cent of the global population.
According to the report, connectivity gap has reduced with almost 1 billion additional people being covered through mobile broadband networks but lack of locally relevant content and services and consumer readiness is holding back adoption of mobile broadband.
"These barriers will slowly be overcome though, and by 2025, an additional 1.2 billion people will start using mobile internet for the first time, which will bring the total number of mobile internet subscribers globally to 5 billion (over 60 per cent of the population)," the report said.
According to the report, 4G accounted for 52 per cent of the total connections across the globe and it will reach 60 per cent by 2023.
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"Meanwhile, 5G is gaining pace. It is now live in 24 markets. By 2025, 5G will account for 20 per cent of global connections, with the take-up particularly strong across developed Asia, North America and Europe," the report said.
It said the government should avoid inflating 5G spectrum prices.