Ericsson accounted for around 8 billion mobile subscriptions in the third quarter of 2019, with 3% year-on-year growth. Mobile broadband closed the same quarter last year with 120 million new users, with a growth of 10% year-over-year and totaling 6.2 billion so far. LTE subscriptions increased 190 million in the same period and reached a total of 4.2 billion.
As for 5G, according to the Mobility Report, a total of 50 service providers worldwide announced commercial launches and the forecast is that this technology will cover up to 65% of the world's population by the end of 2025, with 2.6 billion users and represents 45% of global mobile data traffic. Regarding this last point, in 2019 there was a 68% year-on-year data growth, influenced by a greater number of smartphones from India and China. However, where greater adoption is projected is in North America, with 74% of 5G mobile subscriptions by the end of 2025. Asia will follow, with 56% and Europe, with 55%.
Regarding the future of the IoT (Internet of Things), it is estimated that the total number of connections will be 5 billion at the end of 2025, with Asia as the leader in the adoption of mobile IoT. The automotive segment will be among the best four industries in terms of opportunity for 5G service providers in 2030.
The report cites the case of SK Telecom, the South Korean operator that forecasts that the monthly average data usage for its 5G subscribers will be 27.9GB compared to 8.2GB of 4G users at the end of 2019. SK Telecom reached 2.2 million 5G subscribers at the end of 2019, after the first phase of its deployment, mainly focused on metropolitan areas and populated areas. In that country, the monthly mobile data traffic in August 2019 was around 550 petabytes.
According to Fredrik Jejdling, executive vice president of Ericsson Network Manager, in 2020, 5G-compatible devices will enter the market with greater force, which will allow their adoption to be faster than the one that LTE had.