Research firm Omdia says global 5G connections passed the 3 billion mark in 2025, a 34% increase from the previous year, even as overall telecom revenue growth remained relatively modest.
In its latest market update, Omdia said the worldwide connectivity market, including mobile services, fixed broadband, and fixed voice, generated $333 billion in revenue in the fourth quarter of 2025, up 5% year over year. Full-year revenue reached $1.3 trillion, which was a 4% annual increase.
That combination suggests the telecom industry is still leaning heavily on slow-growing core services while trying to open up new sources of growth. Even so, 5G remained one of the clearest expansion areas in the report.
According to Omdia, global 5G connections reached 3 billion in 2025. That’s still well below the 8.3 billion connections tied to 4G, but it shows that 5G adoption is continuing to scale quickly. Asia remained the largest regional market and accounted for 69% of all 5G connections worldwide.
Fixed broadband also expanded. Omdia said total fixed broadband connections reached 1.6 billion in 2025, with FTTx continuing to lead the segment. More than 1.169 billion of those broadband connections were based on FTTx technologies, representing 7% annual growth.
The report also highlighted a notable shift in fixed wireless access. In the fourth quarter of 2025, India moved ahead of the United States to become the world’s largest 5G FWA market. India reached 14.5 million connections, compared with 13.9 million in the US.
On the operator side, carriers from the US and China continued to dominate revenue rankings. Omdia said eight of the world’s top ten telecom operators by revenue came from those two countries, while the remaining two spots were held by Japanese operators.
Capital spending moved slightly lower, but the pace of decline eased. Global telecom CAPEX totaled $303 billion in 2025, down 2% year over year. That was still a decline, but it marked an improvement from the 3.5% drop recorded in 2024.
Overall, the report paints a mixed picture: the industry is still searching for stronger revenue momentum, but 5G connections, fixed broadband expansion, and the rise of large FWA markets like India suggest network migration and infrastructure demand are still moving forward.
