India still lags US, China in 5G rollout

India’s journey with 5G still has a long way to go.

The country ranked 33 out of 39 in the 5G Connectivity Index for the second quarter of 2024, released by GSMA Intelligence.

However, in areas like 5G revenue growth, data affordability, and video quality, India ranks among the best in the world.

The index, created by GSMA — the global apex body for telecommunications (telecom) associations and a partner at the India Mobile Congress being held from October 15 in Delhi — will see companies showcase their 5G use cases.

The index assigns countries an overall score on the state of 5G development based on two broad categories: 5G infrastructure and 5G services, each given equal weight.

These categories are divided into six pillars, further broken down into 17 indicators.

In the infrastructure category, scores consider spectrum availability, the number of 5G base stations and their coverage, the share of standalone 5G, download and upload speeds, and latency levels.

On the services side, scores are based on 5G and device affordability, 5G and fixed wireless access subscriber penetration, data traffic per user, video service quality, and revenue growth.

India’s overall score of 33.31 is far below that of Thailand (40.53) and Malaysia (39.89), but outperforms Indonesia (20.14), the Philippines (25.02), Brazil (30.28), and Mexico (23.79).

GSMA Intelligence’s global assessment indicates that 5G market penetration has exceeded 40 per cent in countries like China, the US, Japan, South Korea, parts of Europe, the UK, Scandinavian countries, and some West Asian states. India, however, remains in the 20 per cent and below range for 5G penetration.

Interestingly, while India scores high on 5G data affordability, it struggles with device affordability.

The limited availability of sub-~10,000 phones remains a stumbling block for upgrading users from 2G and 4G to 5G.