The GSMA’s Mobile Economy Europe report reveals 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 investment
15 January 2025, London: 5G accounted for 30% of mobile connections in Europe at the end of 2024 – equivalent to 200 million connections – against 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 by 2026 and already accounts for the majority of connections in Germany and Switzerland, while adoption rates in Denmark, Finland, Norway and the UK 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 4G’s 18%, by the end of this decade.
However, in its 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 now shifting their attention to the next generation of networks, with urgent policy reforms required to drive a step-change in access to investment across the continent to keep it competitive globally.
Maximising 5G’s potential
One promising area is in advanced 5G technologies such as 5G Standalone (SA) and 5G-Advanced, which are gaining traction and will help to unlock new use cases and monetisation opportunities.
In Europe, operators are beginning to deploy 5G SA, which does not rely on LTE (Long Term Evolution) to operate, providing opportunities for new applications like 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. In addition, 5G-Advanced is set to deliver new solutions for enterprises, enabling uplink and multicast services at better latency, increasing accuracy for 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 increased adoption of these technologies in Europe will progress more slowly. Digital infrastructure will be key to helping Europe sustain global competitiveness, laying the foundations for advanced technologies but also supporting the expected three-fold rise in mobile data traffic by 2030.
The GSMA’s Chief Regulatory Officer, John Giusti, said: “Europe is at a crossroads in its development of the digital infrastructure that its businesses and citizens will need to succeed. It is concerning to see it falling further and further behind other large markets around the world.
“The mobile industry brings more than €1 trillion to Europe’s economy as well as millions of jobs, and its role as a key enabler of commerce, logistics and innovation needs to be prioritised and strengthened.
“Urgent action is needed from the European Commission and other authorities within the European Union to deliver the policy reforms that Europe’s digital economy needs to support strong, sustained network innovation and to re-establish a leadership position in the global technology marketplace by 2030.”
Sustaining Europe’s global competitiveness
Addressing Europe’s digital infrastructure needs is an important first step towards re-energising the European telecoms sector as an engine of competitiveness and prosperity. The benefits of increased investments will not be restricted to the telecoms and technology sectors but will be felt across every other sector.
To this end, the report recommends action points to support policymakers at the European Commission in building a competitive, secure and sustainable ecosystem. These include:
- Completing the Digital Single Market to allow the mobile industry to develop and deploy services on a cross-border or pan-EU basis
- Implementing additional measures to ensure fairness in the internet value chain
- Initiating a review of the EU Merger Regulation and taking a more long-term view on investment and innovation effects
- Establishing a pro-investment and more predictable approach to EU spectrum policy
- Supporting the sustainability efforts of mobile operators
European operators and AI
European operators are at the forefront of AI and generative AI (genAI) development, with over a third (36%) having widely deployed genAI across multiple business areas. The report spotlights recent applications covering network optimisation, security enhancement and customer service improvements 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 enhance customer service and digital transformation through AI. Meanwhile, Deutsche Telekom is collaborating with multinational partners to enhance telecoms-specific large language models.
To foster responsible AI, operators are also prioritising ethical practices to ensure fairness, protect users and reduce inequalities; the EU’s AI Act sets regulatory standards for responsible AI, while the GSMA Responsible AI Maturity Roadmap offers a framework for ethical and sustainable AI use.
Other key findings from the report include:
- The mobile industry added €1.1 trillion of economic value to the European economy in 2023, representing 5% of European GDP. The mobile ecosystem supports more than 3 million jobs across Europe, 2 million directly employed and around 1.4 million in other sectors.
- Europe is the leading player in the GSMA Open Gateway, with committed operators representing more than 20% of signatories despite accounting for only 10% of global mobile connections. Participating operators include BT, Deutsche Telekom, Orange, Telefónica, Telenor, Vodafone and more.
- Of the €164 billion 5G will add to the European economy in 2030, 34% is expected to originate from the manufacturing sector, followed by the public administration (19%) and services (12%) sectors.
- 5G fixed wireless access (FWA) has emerged as 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.
- There will be 545 million licensed cellular IoT connections in Europe by 2030, of which Germany will account for a quarter. France, Italy, Sweden and the UK will each account for around 10%.
To read the 2025 Mobile Economy Europe report in full, see here.
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The GSMA is a global organisation unifying the mobile ecosystem to discover, develop and deliver innovation foundational to positive business environments and societal change. Our vision is to unlock the full power of connectivity so that people, industry, and society thrive. Representing mobile operators and organisations across the mobile ecosystem and adjacent industries, the GSMA delivers for its members across three broad pillars: Connectivity for Good, Industry Services and Solutions, and Outreach. This activity includes advancing policy, tackling today’s biggest societal challenges, underpinning the technology and interoperability that make mobile work, and providing the world’s largest platform to convene the mobile ecosystem at the MWC and M360 series of events.
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