Financial services to spur growth of 5G in adding $2.2 Trn to global economy

Some key sectors have been identified to benefit the most from 5G Network, which has been forecast to contribute $2.2 trillion to the global economy over the next 15 years.

These sectors, according to GSMA Mobile Economy report are manufacturing, utilities, and professional and financial services.

According to the report, mobile technologies and services generated 4.6 per cent of GDP globally last year, a contribution that amounted to $3.9 trillion of economic value added. This contribution is forecast to grow to $4.8 trillion (4.8 per cent of GDP) by 2023 as countries around the globe increasingly benefit from the improvements in productivity and efficiency brought about by increased take-up of mobile services.

The mobile ecosystem also supported almost 32 million jobs in 2018 (directly and indirectly) and made a substantial contribution to the funding of the public sector, with more than $500 billion raised through general taxation.

Highlights of the report:

• The number of 5G connections will reach 1.4 billion by 2025 – 15 per cent of the global total¹. By this point, 5G is forecast to account for around 30 per cent of connections in markets such as China and Europe, and around half of the total in the US;
• 4G will continue to see strong growth over this period, accounting for almost 60 per cent of global connections by 2025 – up from 43 per cent last year;
• The number of global IoT connections will triple to 25 billion by 2025, while global IoT revenue will quadruple to $1.1 trillion;
• One billion new unique mobile subscribers² have been added in the four years since 2013, bringing the total to 5.1 billion by the end of 2018, representing about two thirds of the global population;
• More than 700 million new subscribers are forecast to be added over the next seven years, about a quarter of these coming from India alone;

An additional 1.4 billion people will start using the mobile internet over the next seven years, bringing the total number of mobile internet subscribers globally to 5 billion by 2025 (more than 60 per cent of the population).