The pan India monthly 5G traffic grew 70% year on year, reaching 12.9 Exabytes (EB) in 2025, which makes around 47% of overall mobile broadband traffic, as per the latest Mobile Broadband Index (MBiT) report released by Nokia.
Interestingly, 5G traffic is expected to surpass 4G within the next quarter or two, Vibha Mehra, Country Manager, India, Nokia said while speaking to the press, as adoption accelerates across both metros and smaller circles. However, at the network level, operators still have significant headroom, with 5G capacity utilisation currently estimated between 30% and 60%, suggesting that traffic can continue to grow without immediate large-scale infrastructure expansion.
A user consumed around 31 GB of data in a month, representing 18% compound annual growth rate (CAGR) over the past 5 years. Overall, data traffic crossed 27 EB per month in 2025, driven by rapid 5G rollout, affordable smartphones and rising consumption of video, social media and AI-led applications.
Adoption in category A,B and C circles
While metro markets lead with 58% 5G traffic share, adoption in Category A, B and C circles is approaching similar levels, indicating a narrowing digital divide and near-uniform nationwide uptake.
India has also been able to secure the world’s second-largest market for 5G subscribers, data consumption and fixed wireless access (FWA). Additionally, the report projects that the country’s 5G subscriber base could exceed 1 billion by 2031.
The surge in data usage continues to be driven largely by consumer applications, particularly video streaming and social media rather than enterprise use cases. However, executives addressed Fixed Wireless Access as an integral pillar of traffic growth, accounting for over 25% of 5G data, with users consuming nearly 10 times more data than mobile users.
As the operator’s growth mature, the next round of development is best expected to be structured around artificial intelligence, which is beginning to alter network behaviour. Executives noted that mobile networks today are heavily skewed towards downloads, roughly 90% downlink versus 10% uplink with the balance likely to shift as AI, content creation and multimodal applications drive higher uplink demand. To accommodate this, operators may need to dynamically adjust spectrum usage.
The report also highlighted that as the device ecosystem evolves, so does the pace of transition. Over 90% of smartphones shipped in 2025 were 5G-capable, with more than 383 million devices already supporting 5G.
At the same time, connected devices, from wearables and smart appliances to electric vehicles and industrial IoT systems are expected to contribute to future data growth, alongside increasing on-device and cloud-based AI workloads that rely on faster processing and memory capabilities.
Despite strong data growth, monetisation methods needs to be revaluated, as per industry executives. This comes from the understanding that the average revenue per user remains low and that enterprise 5G use cases are often viewed as an integral revenue driver, which are still at an early stage globally.