Thursday, March 31, 2022

5G Adoption in Germany Might Lag, and Not Because There is No Coverage

It actually is not so surprising that 5G demand is low in Germany, Austria and Switzerland. Even 4G has been less popular in Germany, for example. 


source: Statista


In 2019, for example, a study by Opensignal found that as many as half of German subscriber identity modules (mobile accounts) are not enabled for 4G service.


According to Opensignal, perhaps 81 percent of those non-users have for some reason elected not to buy  4G service. According to Germany’s Federal Network Agency (Bundesnetzagentur),  at the end of 2018, there were 107.5m active SIM cards in Germany (excluding M2M and IoT cards), but only 50.5m 4G/LTE SIM cards in active use. This would indicate that roughly half of the active SIM cards were not LTE-enabled


According to Opensignal, 81.4 percent of users that have never connected to 4G had a 4G-capable phone and spent time in 4G-covered areas. “These users likely did not upgrade to a 4G subscription or have disabled 4G connections on their phones,” says Opensignal.


As always, consumer adoption of next-generation network services hinges on the perception of value. If 4G provides an example, 5G adoption might lag in Germany.


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