- For up to five years, 4G will remain the dominant technology in Latin America;
- 3G is in a steady decline: it accounted for 36% of connections in 2019 and will drop to 13% in 2025.
5G will represent 13% of the mobile connection base in Latin America in 2025, according to the Ericsson Mobility Report. The survey indicates the first 5G network deployments are expected during 2020 in the region, with Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia and Mexico to be the pioneer countries.
However, in Latin America, LTE (4G) will remain the dominant technology, accounting for 51% of subscriptions at the end of 2019 and a predicted 68% in 2025.
3G is in a steady decline. It accounted for 36% of connections in 2019 and will drop to 13% in 2025. And 2G will have only 4% of the total base five years from now. The subscription uptake is forecast to commence in 2020 and, by the end of 2025, 5G is set to make up 13% of mobile subscriptions.
South East Asia and Latin America are expected to follow similar trends over the forecast period on a regional level, while the individual countries can show very different growth rates of traffic per smartphone, especially in markets deploying 5G.
Traffic growth is driven by coverage and continued adoption of 4G, linked to a rise in smartphone subscriptions and increases in average data usage per smartphone. The data traffic per smartphone is expected to reach 25GB and 22GB per month respectively in South East Asia and Latin America.
