An Ericsson study highlighted operators leading in consumer 5G adoption have greater chances of growing ARPU and revenue from mobile services compared to counterparts lagging in the network technology.

In its latest ConsumerLab report, Ericsson found so-called pacesetters, or operators found to be frontrunners in driving the demand for consumer 5G, are three times more likely to retain customers than other operators. These players also gained at least one per cent year-on-year growth in mobile services revenue and APRU.

The vendor explained leading operators also scored higher in loyalty measures, while they also made strides in innovation by providing an average of three consumer 5G services including cloud gaming, AR and VR services, and fixed wireless access.

Frontrunners in driving the next-generation technology were also the most eager to make steps towards implementing 5G standalone and multi-access edge computing capabilities.

The majority of 5G pacesetters made gains from the technology based on promoting its speed, quality of service, fixed-mobile convergence or bundled content.

Most advanced operators were found to be in North East Asia and North America, followed by Europe.

To benefit from the opportunities from higher 5G consumer adoption, Ericsson urged operators to focus on building extensive coverage including indoors, improving speeds, offering new immersive services and boosting 5G convergent offerings.

The vendor’s report based its insights on market revenue strategies and 5G maturity of 73 operators across 22 markets.