5G future to boost viewing away from home

Three more hours of video content will be consumed on mobile devices per week away from home in a ‘5G future’, a new report from Ericsson predicts.

The report also estimates that an hour of that content will be viewed via AR/VR.

According to the report entitled 5G consumer potential: Busting the myths around the value of 5G for consumers, the higher capacity mobile connectivity of 5G will relieve video streaming constraints and promote growth in mobile streaming.

In 2018, average world smartphone usage stood at 5.6GB per month and Ericsson predicts this will increase to 21GB per month in 2024. It also estimates that 60% of current mobile data is made up of video consumption, but that is expected to drastically increase.

“Half of smartphone users in our survey say they will start watching YouTube and Netflix in 4K and will download more HD video content once 5G is available,” the report reads.

With a growth in VR and AR predicted alongside 4K video streaming, the report claims that “Average usage of 200GB/month is easily possible”.

Ultimately, the report concludes that 5G trends are still difficult to predict: “Consumers see the potential in 5G. However, how the ecosystem will develop and capitalize on these consumer realities remains a mystery.”

Who will curate new 5G experiences, forge partnerships, create new devices and capture additional revenue as a result? Will new internet players, device makers or entities emerge, or will service providers drive this development? With the field opening up, it remains to be seen who will harvest the 5G consumer opportunity.”