Wednesday, February 2, 2022

5G Adoption is Not Really a Problem

Uptake of 5G in Europe has been lagging compared to other markets, says the European Telecom Network Operators’ Association. 


Despite being available to 62 percent of the population, 5G in Europe constitutes only 2.8 percent of the total mobile connections, compared to 13.4 percent in the United States and 29 percent  in South Korea, according to ETNO. 


source: ETNO 


We can make too much of low early adoption of any new technology, including 5G. All important and widely-adopted technologies have a non-linear adoption curve, especially for consumer products. 


New technology adoption is an S curve. Typically, for consumer products, adoption does not enter the high-growth phase until about 10 percent of households already have adopted. That corresponds to the innovator and early adopter portions of the market. 


source: Semantic Scholar  


Adoption by all innovators and early adopters, by some estimates, represents about 16 percent of the total market. So adoption does not ramp up until all the innovators and the first eight percent or so of early adopters have become customers. 


In the graph below, the orange line shows cumulative adoption while the blue curve shows market segments. 


source: Advisor Perspectives  


5G remains in the innovator or early adopter phases in some markets. Adoption has exceeded the 10-percent threshold in South Korea, China and the United States, for example.


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