This is analmost a fourfold increase from the 1.5 billion connections at the end of 2022. Omida thinks that there should be two billion 5G connections by the end of this year.

This figure is close to what Ericsson estimated It thought that global 5G subscriptions would hit a billion at the end of 2022, with 136 million subscriptions being added in the fourth quarter.

Omdia says that 455 million new 5G connections were added worldwide in 2022, equaling 14 per cent sequential quarterly growth.

More than 119 million 5G connections were in North America, in addition to its 507 million LTE connections. Omdia expects some 215 million 5G connections to come from the continent this year, as the sale of 5G-powered phones continues to rise.

5G Americas president Chris Pearson said 5G was growing remarkably and scaling faster than any other previous generation of mobile wireless.

“While deployments and connections are added significantly, the promise of 5G will be realised by technological progress in areas like standalone architecture and network slicing for new use cases.”

Omdia analyst Kristin Paulin said that telecom operators were driving the adoption of 5G with lower prices and smartphone promotions “including some free smartphone deals”.

“This is helping to drive 5G adoption as there is wide 5G coverage in North America, making it likely to be in a 5G service area. The only other thing required is a 5G-eligible plan,” she said.