4cr Indian smartphone users likely to take 5G in 1st year

At least 4 crore (40 million) smartphone users in India could take up 5G in the first year of 5G being made available, a report said on Wednesday.

In fact, India has the biggest rise in intention to upgrade with 67 per cent of users expressing an intention to take up 5G once it is available, an increase of 14 percentage points over 2019.

A new report by Ericsson ConsumerLab highlights how 5G is already beginning to trigger new user behaviours.

“Given that Indian service providers are preparing for 5G deployments, the study throws up some interesting consumer insights towards 5G that will help them encourage 5G adoption and meet consumer expectations,” Nitin Bansal, Head of Ericsson India and Head of Network Solutions Ericsson South East Asia, Oceania & India, said in a statement.

In addition to reducing Wi-Fi use, early adopter 5G users also spend an average of two hours more on cloud gaming and one hour more on augmented reality (AR) apps per week compared to 4G users.

However, while 5G users are satisfied with the speed, about 70 percent are dissatisfied with the availability of innovative services and new apps.

Consumers say they are willing to pay 20-30 per cent more for 5G plans bundled with digital service use cases.

At least 7 in 10 potential early adopters of 5G in India expect higher speeds than 4G while 6 in 10 expect pricing innovation from Communication Service Providers (CSP) like 5G data sharing between family members or across devices.

The report explored consumer sentiment and perception from 26 markets, including the US, the UK, China, and South Korea.