The Asia Pacific will be the largest 5G region in terms of subscriptions by 2024 with 954 million, followed by North America and Europe with 254 million and 242 million, respectively. Whereas, Africa, the Middle East and Latin America regions will be slower to adopt 5G, according to GlobalData, a leading data and analytics company.

The company’s latest report, ‘Mobile 5G Commercialization: Market Demand and Service Revenue Forecast’, reveals that the adoption of mobile 5G services will be supported by the increasing demand for mobile data connectivity at higher speeds, the development of the Internet of Things (IoT) industry and the emergence of low-latency services.

Malcolm Rogers, Senior Technology Analyst at GlobalData, says: “While there is excitement around some of the early network launches in markets such as South Korea, the US, the UK and United Arab Emirates (UAE); the global 5G market will really accelerate over the next two years as more handset manufactures bring 5G capable devices to the market.

“Currently each operator with 5G service availability only has a handful of compatible smartphones on offer and usually at the flagship tier. Once 5G devices become more mainstream and competitively priced, we expect a large uptick in 5G subscription and revenue growth.”

GlobalData expects annual mobile 5G service revenue to reach US$301bn by 2024. Asia Pacific will again be the largest overall contributor to mobile 5G service revenue with US$122bn; however, North America will see the highest portion of total mobile revenue coming from 5G services, with the region’s forecasted US$110bn in 5G service revenue in 2024 to account for 45% of total mobile service revenue that year. The Asia Pacific and Europe regions will see the second highest contribution from 5G to total mobile service revenue by the end of the forecast period, with mobile 5G service revenue contributing 31% in each region by 2024.

Rogers adds: “While device availability and network expansions will help drive 5G subscription growth across all global regions, operators in North America are already taking a proactive approach towards offering higher value services beyond connectivity.

“Players like AT&T and Verizon are looking to launch more advanced 5G based services around AR/VR, robotics, and cloud based traffic control and other services based on real-time 5G IoT analytics. Operators willing to innovate around 5G will be able to drive more revenue from the technology.”