Availability of 5G and low-cost 5G phones fueled the growth of 5G networks in India. According to the latest India Mobile Broadband Index 2025 report from Nokia, 5G traffic grew 3x in India in 2024. In 2023, the 5G and 4G traffic in India stood at 14.8% and 85.2%, respectively. But in 2024, this grew to 35.5% for 5G and 4G traffic saw a dip to 64.5%. With Vodafone Idea (Vi) launching 5G in 2025, the data traffic share of 5G would increase even further.
Nokia mentioned in the report that as per its estimates, the 5G data traffic would surpass 4G data traffic in Q1 2026. Further, the 5G subscribers will grow from 290 million in India at the end of 2024 to 770 million by 2028. One of the key reasons for the growth of 5G data traffic in India is the availability of FWA (fixed-wireless access) services. The 5G FWA accounted for 25% of the overall 5G trafffic in 2024. Nokia said that 5G FWA users consume 12x more data than the 5G mobile network users.
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Indian Telcos to Add 120 Million 5G Users Yearly
The average 5G data consumption by a user in a given month was 40GB as of December 2024. Indian telecom operators are expected to add 120 million 5G subscribers annually from now. The most growth for 5G traffic consumption came not from the metros, but from the category B and category C telecom circles.
As of now, India has 4.6 lakh 5G BTS (base transceiver stations) throughout India and the number will only rise as Vi deploys 5G and BSNL (Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited) comes into the mix as well.
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5G Devices Double in India in 2024
One of the key reasons for the growth of 5G traffic in India was the doubling of 5G devices in the market. The active 5G devices doubled to reach 271 million in 2024. Out of 844 million 4G devices, there were 271 million phones that were 5G enabled. The report mentioned that four out of five smartphones replaced in 2024 were 5G supported. The share of 5G smartphone in overall smartphone shipments grew to 79% in 2024
