Scindia Sets Target of One Billion 5G Users by 2030 at India Mobile Congress

Communications Minister Jyotiraditya Scindia has set a target of taking India’s 5G user base from 550 million to one billion by 2030. He made the statement at the inauguration of the 10th India Mobile Congress at Yashobhoomi in New Delhi, according to Communications Today and to the news agency ANI as carried by Devdiscourse. The four-day event, held from 7 to 10 October, is organised by the Department of Telecommunications and the Cellular Operators Association of India.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi inaugurated the congress on 8 October. In remarks reported by the news agency IANS and published by The Hans India, he said India’s telecom sector has moved beyond networks and spectrum, and that mobile connectivity has become a key enabler of governance. He called the mobile phone a tool of good governance. Modi said 5G has reached every district, with more than 5.5 lakh base stations, and that mobile internet speeds are ten times higher than in 2022.

Scindia said India’s 5G adoption is the fastest in the world and that the country intends to lead in 6G. According to Communications Today, he acknowledged that India trailed other countries in 4G but said it kept pace on 5G. He said the Bharat 6G Alliance now has 90 member institutions and 7,700 patents, of which 4,400 are international.

Looking back at the period since the first congress in 2017, Scindia said broadband customers have grown from 60 million to more than 1.1 billion, and that India now has 1.35 billion mobile customers. He said the price of one gigabyte of data has fallen from Rs 268 in 2014 to Rs 8, which he described as the cheapest in the world.

On digital payments, the minister said UPI accounts for 84 per cent of India’s digital transactions and handles 260 billion transactions a year, worth 3.4 trillion US dollars, and that the technology has been extended to 11 other countries. On rural connectivity, he said the BharatNet programme, which he put at 15 billion US dollars, will provide middle-mile connectivity to about 2.6 lakh gram panchayats and on-demand connectivity to the remaining 3.8 lakh villages, at 100 Mbps to every home.

Scindia also spoke about manufacturing. He said the mobile phone industry has grown from about 2 to 3 billion US dollars in 2014 to 63 billion dollars now, making India the world’s second-largest mobile phone producer, with exports close to 29 billion dollars. These figures are the minister’s own statements as reported, and this publication has not independently verified them. Organisers had said the congress, themed “Scale Without Boundaries,” was expected to draw more than 150,000 attendees from over 100 countries.