5G Grows Fast in India, Without Meaningful Monetisation

5G is growing super fast in India. The reason has been continous and aggressive investments by Reliance Jio and Bharti Airtel. Vodafone Idea has also started deploying 5G and is looking to scale it in the coming quarters. In fact, Ericsson in its latest mobility report has noted that India will surpass oveer 1.1 billion 5G connections by 2031 (in the next five years). This is phenomenal growth. The share of only 4G users is anyway shrinking every year in the country. This will continue to happen as more affordable 5G phones enter the market and more users upgrade from their old 4G only devices to 5G phones.

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Key Highlights

  • India is expected to cross 1.1 billion 5G connections by 2031.
  • Reliance Jio, Bharti Airtel, and Vodafone Idea are driving 5G expansion.
  • 5G adoption is rising as more affordable 5G smartphones enter the market.
  • Telecom operators are still searching for effective ways to monetise 5G services.
  • Monthly data consumption could reach 70GB per user by 2031.

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However, all this growth for 5G has come without any meaningful monetisation in the country. Even halfway through 2026, the telecom operators are not really charging anything extra for 5G. The telcos are working on ways in which they can monetise 5G, and one of the use cases which they can really monetise is slicing. With network slicing, telcos can market better services with higher download speed and super low latency to the users.

Data Consumption is Going Up, 5G to Boost Further

Data consumption is going up, and is even expected to reach 70GB per customer per month by 2031, as per Ericsson report. However, at present, the telcos are not monetising 5G data. If they delay any further, then the rising data consumption will have less material benefit for them, and would actually prompt them to invest even more money into the networks.