India’s telecom market has not reached a plateau, with rising information consumption, rising synthetic intelligence (AI) functions and additional 5G adoption anticipated to maintain community demand, in line with Nitin Bansal, Managing Director, India and Head-Networks, South East Asia, Oceania and India, at Ericsson.
“We don’t consider that development has plateaued. Progress will proceed as AI functions introduce new community necessities, together with larger uplink speeds and decrease latency for functions equivalent to augmented and digital actuality and the administration of important infrastructure. Community expectations will proceed to rise, and information consumption will develop additional,” Bansal mentioned in an interview on the sidelines of the lately concluded India Cell Congress (IMC).
“We’re already seeing month-to-month information utilization of round 36–37 GB per consumer [according to Ericsson’s June 2026 Mobility Report], a degree we’d not have anticipated a number of years in the past. On the similar time, 5G at present serves solely about one-third of India’s inhabitants, leaving important room for enlargement as new use circumstances emerge,” he added. So, the following section of development in India shall be pushed not solely by rising information consumption but additionally by AI functions requiring larger uplink speeds and decrease latency.
Ericsson’s South East Asia, Oceania and India market accounted for 12% of its enterprise in 2025, down from 20% in 2023. It competes with Nokia and Samsung, amongst others, within the Indian market.
5G monetization
India has established one of many world’s largest 5G markets since launching companies in October 2022. The nation had round 550 million 5G customers by September 2026, with companies obtainable in 99.9% of its districts, in line with figures offered by the federal government at IMC. India is concentrating on one billion 5G subscribers by 2030.
For India’s telecom operators, the problem is to translate increasing 5G adoption into income development. Preliminary deployments centered on enhanced cellular broadband, adopted by Mounted Wi-fi Entry (FWA), which makes use of wi-fi networks to ship broadband connectivity to houses and companies.
The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) information present there have been 13.45 million 5G FWA subscribers on the finish of August 2026, highlighting the position of the expertise in increasing broadband entry.
Operators are additionally exploring utilizing 5G to supply extra differentiated companies. Bharti Airtel, India’s second-largest service supplier, lately launched a 5G network-slicing-based service, which grants sooner and extra dependable 5G service to its postpaid clients.
Commenting on whether or not Indian telcos ought to have adopted a staggered method in 5G deployment as a substitute of organising a community throughout the nation in one of many quickest pan-India deployments, Bansal mentioned, “5G just isn’t about use case for Indian networks. India wanted capability and 5G brings the capability in essentially the most environment friendly manner. So, moderately than increasing on 4G, I consider India did the suitable factor by evolving to 5G. The true worth of 5G comes with ubiquitous protection. And so, with the good protection that we now have and we even have numerous 5G Standalone (5G-SA) deployment as effectively, it opens up different monetization potentialities.”
Bansal believes that new use circumstances ought to emerge over the following few months. “I consider that we’re transferring in the suitable route, and we must always see some extra monetization use circumstances coming our manner within the coming months,” Bansal mentioned.
He additionally famous that though present Indian networks can help AI functions, operators might want to optimise them in line with the necessities of specific functions.
