Industrial 5G will increase mobile industry revenues by $700 billion by 2030

The implementation of fifth-generation (5G) networks in industry will mean an increase of up to $700 billion (575.509 billion euros) a year for the telecoms sector by 2030, GSM Association (GSMA) director general Mats Granryd said.

Speaking at the opening session of the Mobile World Congress (MWC) in Shanghai, organised by the GSMA, Granryd predicted that by 2025, 5G will account for almost half of the world's mobile connections.

In the shorter term, the head of the mobile industry association predicted that, before the end of this year, "5G will reach one in five people globally".

So far, 144 such networks have been launched around the world and some 200 different models of 5G-capable devices are available, Granryd said.

With respect to the investment needed to achieve these goals, the GSMA CEO said that by 2025, mobile operators will devote 80 per cent of their total spending of around USD 1.1 trillion (EUR 904,096 million) to 5G.

The event was also attended, both virtually and in person, by senior executives from the main Chinese operators, local companies dedicated to the development of 5G such as Huawei and ZTE, and foreign firms in the sector such as Verizon and Nokia.

Beyond the impact of the COVID pandemic, most of these companies focused this day on the industrial applications of 5G, with the Chinese companies agreeing to call for more international collaboration to establish standards and find business models.

5G offers speeds up to 20 times faster than its predecessor, 4G, and according to the president of the Finnish technology company, Pekka Lundmark, it will increase global GDP by 7%, the equivalent of $8 trillion, by 2030.

However, as Yang Yuanqing, chairman of China's Lenovo, the world's leading computer manufacturer and owner of Motorola, acknowledged, there is still debate as to whether 5G technology is mature enough and whether the returns on investment are sufficient.

Data provided by Nokia put the return in value of developing networks and cloud computing for its users at $4 for every $1 invested.

Yang spoke of the "need to promote 5G in a big way", stressing that the focus should not be on consumer telecoms but on "manufacturing, transportation, healthcare or commerce", considering it an "important precondition for the transformation of the entire industry".