20 December 2022

Ericsson is maintaining its prediction of more than 1 billion 5G customers by the end of 2022 but has increased its fixed wireless access (FWA) forecast subscriptions.

5G FWA customer numbers will remain low this year at around 30 million from a total FWA base of just over 100 million. However, total global FWA subscriptions will grow at 19% year-on-year during 2022-2028 period to reach more than 300 million by 2028, the vast majority of which will be based on 5G.

The use of FWA for home and business broadband is proving to be a major early use case for 5G, especially in regions where the fixed broadband market is lacking. FWA growth is in part driven by India and will also come in other emerging markets. Ericsson’s data shows that almost 40% of 5G FWA launches came in emerging markets in the past year, with services now on offer in densely populated countries like Mexico, South Africa, and the Philippines.

“Following the 5G spectrum auction in India in July, a major service provider has expressed a goal to serve 100 million homes and millions of businesses with 5G FWA services,” said Ericsson. “Higher volumes of 5G FWA in large high-growth countries such as India have the potential to drive economies of scale for the overall 5G FWA ecosystem, resulting in affordable CPE that will have a positive impact across low-income markets.”

Globally, 5G subscriptions will hit 5 billion by the end of 2028, despite the economic challenges much of the world is facing. Service providers together added 110 million 5G subscriptions in the July-September period, bringing the worldwide total to around 870 million. With that sort of uptake, the 1 billion by year-end figure looks likely. Growth is being driven by device availability, falling prices and large-scale deployments in China.