According to GSMA report, India will have a total 920 million unique mobile subscribers by 2025, out of which 88 million would comprise 5G connections.  The number of unique mobile subscribers would have considerably increased from 750 million unique subscribers reported during end 2018, says GSMA.

As per GSMA, 4G data usage pattern in the country is likely to support adoption of new 5G devices and services in the due course. However, the emergence of 5G ecosystem in India primarily depends on telecom operators' capacity to invest in 5G networks which would require favourable policies and regulations.

Moreover, GSMA predicts that the Indian mobile market would gradually experience revenue growth in the second half of 2019 that shall modestly continue till 2025. However, market revenues will still be below the 2016 level, indicating that market repair will be a slow and challenging process.

Besides, GSMA’s recent survey of global mobile data pricing highlighted India to be the cheapest market in over 200 countries assessed in the last quarter of 2018. In order to minimise financial constraints posed to telecom operators, GSMA has recommended a reduction in licence fee from 8 to 6 per cent and the spectrum fee from 3-8 per cent to 1 per cent.

Further, GSMA expects India to become the second largest smartphone market with nearly 1 billion installed handsets by 2025.