Investments in digital infrastructure are key to boosting Europe's global competitiveness, according to a new GSMA report

The GSMA's Mobile Economy Europe report reveals that 5G adoption in Europe will soar to 80% by 2030, boosting the economy by €164 billion, but policy reforms are key to securing critical network investments.

January 15, 2025, London: 5G represented 30% of mobile connections in Europe by the end of 2024 (equivalent to 200 million connections), compared to a global average of 24%, according to the GSMA's annual Mobile Economy Europe report published today.

5G will become the dominant mobile technology on the continent in 2026 and already accounts for the majority of connections in Germany and Switzerland, while adoption rates in Denmark, Finland, Norway and the United Kingdom have exceeded 40%. By 2030, it will provide an additional €164 billion boost to the overall economy, with 80% of the continent's connections forecast to be 5G, compared to 18% for 4G, by the end of this decade.

However, in 5G adoption, Europe continues to lag behind other advanced regions such as North America, East Asia and the Gulf Cooperation Council states, where many operators are turning their attention to the next generation of networks, and Urgent policy reforms are required to drive radical change in access to investment across the continent to keep it globally competitive.

Maximizing the potential of 5G

One promising area is advanced 5G technologies, such as 5G Standalone (SA) and 5G-Advanced, which are gaining traction and will help unlock new use cases and monetization opportunities.

In Europe, operators are starting to deploy 5G SA, which does not rely on LTE (Long Term Evolution) to operate, providing opportunities for new applications such as network slicing. As of September 2024, 18 European operators had launched 5G SA services, including recent launches from EE in the UK and Free in France. Additionally, 5G-Advanced will offer new solutions for enterprises, enabling uplink and multicast services with better latency, increasing the accuracy of extended reality applications, and improving the reliability of AI.

However, unless key regulatory challenges that restrict investment capacity in the European sector are resolved, the wider adoption of these technologies in Europe will progress more slowly. Digital infrastructure will be key to helping Europe sustain global competitiveness, laying the foundation for advanced technologies but also supporting the expected three-fold increase in mobile data traffic by 2030.

GSMA Chief Regulatory Officer John Giusti said: “Europe is at a crossroads in developing the digital infrastructure that its businesses and citizens will need to succeed. It is worrying to see how it falls further and further behind other large markets around the world.

“The mobile industry contributes more than €1 trillion to the European economy, as well as millions of jobs, and its role as a key enabler of trade, logistics and innovation needs to be prioritized and strengthened.

“Urgent action is needed by the European Commission and other authorities within the European Union to implement the policy reforms that Europe's digital economy needs to support strong and sustained network innovation and re-establish a leading market position.” global technology by 2030″.

Maintain Europe's global competitiveness

Addressing Europe's digital infrastructure needs is an important first step towards revitalizing the European telecommunications sector as an engine of competitiveness and prosperity. The benefits of increased investments will not be limited to the telecom and technology sectors but will be felt across all other sectors.

To this end, the report recommends measures to support European Commission policymakers in building a competitive, secure and sustainable ecosystem. These include:

• Complete the digital single market to enable the mobile industry to develop and deploy services on a cross-border or pan-European level.
• Implement additional measures to ensure equity in the Internet value chain
• Launch a review of the EU Merger Regulation and take a longer-term view on the effects of investment and innovation
• Establish a more predictable, investment-friendly approach to EU spectrum policy
• Support the sustainability efforts of mobile operators

European operators and AI

European operators are at the forefront of AI and generative AI (genAI) development, with more than a third (36%) having widely deployed genAI across multiple business areas. The report highlights recent applications covering network optimization, improving security and improving customer service from European operators including Deutsche Telekom, EE, Orange and Vodafone.

Operators in Europe are increasingly forming regional and global partnerships to strengthen their genAI capabilities and pave the way for new business models and revenue streams. For example, Vodafone recently agreed a ten-year strategic partnership with Microsoft to improve customer service and digital transformation through AI. Meanwhile, Deutsche Telekom is collaborating with multinational partners to improve large language models specific to telecommunications.

To encourage responsible AI, operators are also prioritizing ethical practices to ensure fairness, protect users and reduce inequalities; The EU AI Law sets regulatory standards for responsible AI, while the GSMA Responsible AI Maturity Roadmap provides a framework for the ethical and sustainable use of AI.

Other key findings of the report include:

• The mobile industry added 1.1 billion euros of economic value for the European economy in 2023, which will represent 5% of European GDP. The mobile ecosystem generates more than 3 million jobs throughout Europe, 2 million direct employees and around 1.4 million in other sectors.
• Europe is the leading player in GSMA Open Gateway, with committed operators representing more than 20% of signatories despite representing only 10% of global mobile connections. Participating operators include BT, Deutsche Telekom, Orange, Telefónica, Telenor, Vodafone and more.
• Of the €164 billion that 5G will contribute to the European economy in 2030, 34% is expected to come from the manufacturing sector, followed by the public administration (19%) and services (12%) sectors.
• 5G fixed wireless access (FWA) has become an important use case in the consumer and enterprise segments, complementing operators' enhanced mobile broadband offerings. To date, operators in 24 European countries have launched 5G FWA services.
• By 2030, there will be 545 million licensed IoT cellular connections in Europe, of which Germany will account for a quarter. France, Italy, Sweden and the United Kingdom will each account for around 10%.

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