According to the latest report, the number of LTE users worldwide reached 5.43 billion in the first quarter of 2020, up 20.8% from the same period last year (a net increase of about 936 million). Currently, LTE users account for 59.2 percent of the world's mobile users.
By region, in the first quarter of 2020, the Asia-Pacific market had 67.0%(3.64 billion, including 1.28 billion in China) of LTE subscribers, followed by 11.9%(650 million) in Europe, 9.1%(490 million) in North America, 6.9%(370 million) in Latin America and the Caribbean, 2.6%(140 million) in the Middle East, and 2.5%(140 million) in Africa.
Meanwhile, global 5G users quadrupled to 63.65 million in the first quarter of 2020, accounting for 0.69 percent of the global mobile market. According to statistics, by the first quarter of 2020, China Mobile and China Telecom had 48.33 million 5G users, of which China Mobile had 31.72 million and China Telecom had 16.61 million. China Unicom doesn't disclose the number of 5G users, but industry estimates should not be much different from China Telecom. Therefore, by the first quarter of 2020, the total number of 5G users of China's three major operators may exceed 60 million.
According to the latest forecasts, the number of mobile users worldwide will reach 10.24 billion by the end of 2024.
LTE users' share of total mobile users will peak in 2021 (62.4%), while the number of users will peak at the end of 2022 (6.057 billion). The LTE market is expected to decline from 2023 as users switch to 5G.
From the end of 2020 to the end of 2024, GSM share will fall from 15.4% to 7.1% and W-CDMA from 20.0% to 13.0%.
By the end of 2024, 5G users will account for nearly a quarter (2.46bn) of global mobile users, while LTE users will still account for 55.5 per cent of total mobile users.
