Mobile download speeds in Seoul topped a ranking of Asia-Pacific cities by analytics company OpenSignal, with rates 41 per cent faster than second-placed Singapore.

Ian Fogg, OpenSignal’s VP of analysis, said South Korea’s mobile players will be looking to extend their lead because the country is the first to see a significant numbers of 5G smartphone users.

Around 260,000 users signed up to 5G in South Korea in the opening weeks of commercial availability, but Fogg said those users didn’t have a significant impact on Seoul’s results because the majority of OpenSignal’s active installed base of more than 10 million devices in the country are 4G smartphones.

He added the 5G users accounted for only a fraction of South Korea’s 60 million mobile subscribers at the start of May (the country has a SIM penetration rate of 117 per cent).

Data collected between 1 February and 2 May showed average download speeds of 56.3Mb/s in Seoul, compared with 39.8Mb/s in Sydney, 31.4Mb/s in Tokyo and 28.3Mb/s in Taipei.

Seoul also topped the table for upload speeds, with an average of 16.6Mb/s compared with 13.3Mb/s for Singapore and Sydney (8.9Mb/s).