How Will 5G Revenue Break Out Between Consumer, Enterprise Segments?

Will 73 percent of 5G revenues come from B2B souces? That is what a report from BearningPoint claims, based on a survey of telecom executives by Omdia.

It always matters how a question is asked, but some might be more than a little surprised that BearingPoint reports that most 5G revenue will be generated by B2B sources. If 68 percent of total mobile operator revenue often is earned from consumers, it is hard to see the business-to-business revenue remaining at such a high percentage of total, long term. Given that 5G will replace 4G, eventually nearly all 4G consumer accounts will switch to 5G.

Near term, executives expect perhaps 25 percent of 5G revenue will be driven by consumer accounts.Perhaps that is true in the short tern, but it is hard to see how that could be true, long term.

source: BearingPoint

The findings might indicate a belief that new incremental revenue sources and subscriptions will come from B2B use cases including internet of things. That would make more sense. Perhaps that is what the respondents meant, even if the reports indicate otherwise. Certainly some of us have argued that the chief incremental revenue from 5G will come from new sources such as IoT. Perhaps that is the sense in which the Omdia survey data makes most sense.