5G subscriptions doubled in the second quarter of 2020 to 137.7 million, representing 1.5 percent of the entire global mobile market, the Global mobile Suppliers Association (GSA) revealed.

5G will account for nearly 30 percent of the global market with 3.03 billion subscriptions by the end of 2025. LTE will be dominant at 53.5 percent of all global mobile subscriptions by the end of 2025. LTE market is forecast to start to decline from 2023 as customers migrate to 5G, according to GSA and Omdia report forecast.

LTE subscriptions account for 60.4 percent of all global mobile subscriptions, with nearly 800 million LTE subscriptions added in the preceding 12 months.

“We have already seen 5G deployed at a quicker pace than we saw in the early days of 4G, and these subscriber forecasts further reinforce our view that 5G will be the fastest deployed mobile technology ever,” Joe Barrett, president of GSA.

The LTE and 5G Market Growth and Forecasts summary data, including a regional breakdown of LTE subscribers and forecast share of mobile subscriptions by technology is available for free download for registered users from https://gsacom.com/paper/lte-5g-subscribers-2020-global-growth/.  Detailed data on the status of 4G and 5G spectrum, networks and devices is available for GSA Members and Associates via the GSA GAMBoD database.

GSA earlier confirmed that 101 mobile operators in 44 countries have launched one of more fully commercial 3GPP-compliant 5G services. 94 operators are live with 3GPP-compliant 5G mobile services, while 37 have launched 3GPP-compliant 5G FWA or home broadband services (up from 34).

Total of 397 operators in 129 countries have announced investment in 5G, including trials, acquisition of licences, planning, network deployment and launches.

There are over 400 announced 5G devices. There are 20 commercially available 5G mobile processors and platforms and eight discrete 5G modems from five different semi-conductor companies.

Research firm Omdia in another report projects that 5G connections will reach 236 million globally by the end of 2020. North America will have 10 million 5G connections.

“We expect growth to pick up in the second half of the year, following the easing of lockdowns as well as continued 5G network expansion and the availability of more 5G devices,” Kristin Paulin, senior analyst at Omdia, said.