Despite near mobile saturation in many countries, mobile subscriptions managed to grow 3 per cent globally year-on-year in Q3 to reach 7.5 billion, with Asia accounting for 60 per cent of the new adds, according to Ericsson’s latest Mobility Report.

The Asia-Pacific region added 51 million subscribers in the quarter, while 84 million subs were added globally.

Five countries in Asia accounted for more than half the worldwide additions (see chart below, click to enlarge). India had the most net additions during the quarter (15 million), followed by China (14 million), Indonesia (6 million), Myanmar (4 million) and the Philippines (4 million).

ericsson-report
Mobile penetration is now 93 per cent in China and 81 per cent in India.

The report forecasts Asia will have the second fastest uptake of 5G, with 10 per cent of all the region’s total mobile subscriptions being 5G in 2022.

Ericsson is forecasting 550 million global 5G subscribers by 2022, with North America having the highest 5G penetration (25 per cent). However, worth noting (and something Ericsson’s report doesn’t focus on) is the fact that Asia Pacific will have far more total 5G subs than North America, given its much larger mobile base.

LTE subscriptions are expected to represent 50 per cent of all subscriptions in Asia by the end of 2022, accouting for about a quarter of the global total.

Mobile data traffic per smartphone per month in Asia is forecast to jump from 1.7GB this year to 9.5GB in 2022.