It’s now over four years since 5G first launched in South Korea and the U.S. and the experience is continuing to mature. However, in other markets, such as India, 5G has only recently launched yet the 5G experience is already a marked improvement on 4G. In this latest global 5G benchmark, Opensignal quantifies how the real-world 5G experience compares. Average 5G speeds are many times faster than 4G and there is a significant uplift in the mobile video streaming and gaming experience with 5G compared with older 4G technology too.
South Korea and Puerto Rico lead in worldwide 5G Availability with 5G users in these markets approaching half of time spent with an active 5G connection with scores of 42.9% and 48.4% respectively. Impressively, given the geographic size of the market, the U.S. ranks fourth with 31.1% 5G Availability — almost a third. The widespread usage of low frequency bands for 5G services combined with standalone 5G deployments have helped U.S. operators to boost the market’s overall 5G Availability.
However, across other developed markets, scores range widely. In Europe, Finland and Bulgaria have the joint highest 5G Availability score (24.2% - 24.7%), but the five largest markets are lower with France scoring 20.6%, Germany 13.3%, Italy 17.9%, Spain 15.2% and the U.K. scoring a relatively lowly 10.1%. Belgium has the lowest 5G Availability in Europe with a time connected of 4%. In Asia Pacific, South Korea is chased by Singapore and Taiwan (both 30%). Close neighbor to Singapore, Malaysia, scores 20.5% despite a relatively recent 5G launch.
New 5G network technology continues to offer users extremely good real-world average download speeds that are many times faster than average 4G download speeds. In six markets, average 5G download speeds are over 10 times as fast as 4G speeds: India (19.2x), Malaysia (14.4x), Sri Lanka (13.8x), Brazil (13.5x), Kuwait (10.8x) and Guatemala (10.4x). However, users in most markets see 5G speeds that are three to six times as fast as 4G.
Absolute 5G Download Speed is also extremely fast too. In South Korea average 5G download speeds are the fastest in the world with 432.5Mbps followed by Singapore (376.8Mbps), Brazil (346.4Mbps) and Malaysia (322.7Mbps). In total there are seven markets where average 5G speeds top 300Mbps. Malaysia’s high score is helped by its unusual 5G single wholesale network and relatively low 5G adoption that means the network has relatively light loads.
Singapore’s result is especially interesting as initially 5G speeds were much lower because of lack of new 5G spectrum and the use of non-standalone, but now standalone has launched speeds are rising. In Brazil too, we see the impact of a change in the market since 5G’s original launch. Now the use of new mid-band spectrum, that was initially unavailable, has added greatly needed new capacity that has boosted speeds into the top global tier.
5G Peak Download Speeds are even faster than average download speeds. Here, in most markets, users see peak speeds over 500Mbps. However, there are outliers where lack of new spectrum or the relative newness of the 5G service means 5G Peak Download Speed fails to come close to that of most other markets, examples include Argentina (151Mbps), Peru (154.9Mbps) and Indonesia (166.5Mbps) which are statistically tied, and Poland (239.1Mbps).
There are significant improvements in the on-demand video streaming experience and multiplayer gaming experience with 5G in almost all markets. Video Experience is between 37.6% (Sri Lanka) and 4.7% (Netherlands) better with 5G. Similarly, for Games Experience the uplift with 5G ranges from 31.3% (Guatemala) to 2.7% (Japan).
A number of emerging markets see some of the greatest improvement in experience with 5G for both gaming and video streaming. Users across India see an uplift of 23.4% for Video Experience and a similar 29.2% for Games Experience ranking second globally for improvement on that measure. Malaysia is second in the world for video uplift with a 26.1% jump and is third for gaming with a 27.7% higher score using 5G over 4G.
With 5G, the Video Experience is strong in most markets. In three markets — Singapore (78.2), Austria (78.2) and Sweden (78) — it rates as Excellent (78 or above on a 100-point scale). In almost all others, it rates as Very Good (68-78).
15 markets rank as Excellent (85 or above) for 5G Games Experience. Top of the list, with the only scores over 90 a 100-point scale are Singapore (94.1) and Hong Kong (91.1). However, notably Malaysia (89.7) also does well as do a number of European markets led by Czechia (89.6) and the Netherlands (88.8). The highest rated market from the Americas is Canada with a score of 83.4.
The 5G experience continues to evolve. More markets are launching 5G. More spectrum is becoming available and that additional spectrum is boosting capacity and improving users’ experience with faster speeds, and a better video and gaming experience. And, operators are soon to deploy newer versions of 5G technology with which they aim to further drive an even higher quality of experience with 5G. Opensignal’s real-world measures will continue to track global markets to quantify and validate these claims and see the extent to which they improve users’ connectivity.
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