Uncovering the impact of 5G on mobile revenue

5G has brought much hype and evangelism but little in the way of concrete analysis on its potential financial impact on mobile operators. We provide a view on what this could look like using our Consumer Insights Survey 2019 on upgrade intentions and propensity to pay. Our analysis focusses on seven high-income countries at the vanguard of 5G adoption. The results imply an average uplift to mobile service revenue growth of 1.6% based on our forecast for 2019, but there is significant variation below the surface, with China having the most bullish outlook. These are, of course, scenario projections rather than actual reported results. While modest overall, any revenue growth uplift would be welcome and these are conservative projections that should rise as handset prices come down and use cases materialise beyond faster speeds.