India to have 780 m VoLTE subscribers by 2023

Swedish gear maker Ericsson’s June 2018 Mobility report said 4G LTE will account for more than 78% of the total mobile phone subscriptions in India by 2023 compared to 20% in 2017.

India is expected to have 780 million voice-over-LTE (VoLTE) subscribers, while total smartphone subscriptions in the country will grow 2.5 times to cross 975 million by 2023.

According to Ericsson, total mobile data traffic per month is expected to grow five times during the forecast period from 1.9 EB to 10 EB. Monthly data usage per smartphone (GB/month) in India will also increase from 5.7 GB in 2017 to 13.7 GB by 2023.


“We expect LTE to be the most dominant technology in India by 2023,” said Nitin Bansal, head of network solutions for Southeast Asia, Oceania and India for Ericsson.

India also saw the second highest number of net mobile subscription additions by country in the first quarter of 2018 at 16 million. China added 98 million new subscribers during the quarter. Indonesia added over 6 million subscriptions, followed by Nigeria (+3 million) and Bangladesh (+2 million).

Bansal said Internet of Things (IoT) is also picking up in a big way with cellular IoT connections in India set to reach 72 million by 2023, growing at a CAGR of 25%.

On 5G, Ericsson expects North America to lead the uptake, with all major US operators planning to roll out 5G between late 2018 and mid-2019. By end of 2023, close to 50% of all mobile subscriptions in North America are forecast to be for 5G, followed by North East Asia at 34%, and Western Europe at 21%. Globally, major 5G deployments are expected from 2020.

The equipment maker forecast over 1 billion 5G subscriptions for enhanced mobile broadband by end of 2023, accounting for around 12% of all mobile subscriptions.

Like previous mobile access technologies, 5G is expected to be deployed first in dense urban areas with enhanced mobile broadband and fixed wireless access as the first commercial use cases.