Most of new mobile subscribers to come from India, China, Pakistan, Nigeria: GSMA

While adding new subscribers has become difficult due to saturation in most of the markets, the global subscriber base is still expected to rise by 600 million on account of new customer addition in India, China, Pakistan and Nigeria, global industry body GSMA said on Thursday. According to the ‘Mobile Economy 2020’ report released by the GSMA, mobile services at the end of 2019 is estimated to be at 5.2 billion, accounting for 67 per cent of the global population.

“Adding new subscribers is increasingly difficult as markets have become saturated and the economics of reaching rural populations has become more difficult to justify in a challenging financial climate for mobile operators,” the report said adding that despite this, there will be around 600 million new subscribers by 2025 — mostly in India, China, Pakistan and Nigeria.