Nokia tipped 5G-enabled industries to contribute $8 trillion in value to the global economy by 2030, and predicted 71 per cent of companies will invest in the network standard over the next five years.
The prediction comes from the Finnish vendor’s 5G Business Readiness Report, co-authored with Nokia Bell Labs. It surveyed companies in eight markets namely: Australia, Germany, Finland, Japan, Saudi Arabia, South Korea, the UK and the US.
In a statement, Nokia said the report highlights a “clear correlation between 5G deployment and business performance”, claiming companies with advanced levels of 5G adoption saw net 10% increase in productivity following the Covid-19 pandemic, and the only group able to maintain or increase customer engagement during the health crisis.
Nokia highlighted there are significant geographic variations: 13% of organizations in Saudi Arabia and 12% in the United States were rated as 5G mature, fewer than one in 20 were classed as such in Germany (3%), Finland (2%) and the UK (4%).
The vendor also highlighted a “significant investment gap” remains despite the importance of 5G adoption being well understood, 86 per cent of decision-makers stated “some kind of strategy” for 5G, and over a third fear being outpaced by the competition should they not invest in 5G in the next 3 years. But only 15 per cent are investing in implementation, and 29 per cent are not planning any 5G investment in the next five years.
Catalyst for change
The report identified three key catalysts for change in order to ultimately improve 5G adoption, understanding and confidence.
First was the need for government investment into infrastructure or providing subsidises to drive costs of upgrades down to encourage more investment.
The second was understanding, there are companies that still do not understand how 5G can be utilised to improve operations and issues such as telehealth and green technology.
From understanding 5G better, companies can move to the third point, and that is to overhaul their operations to use 5G as a tool to streamline operations, examples given were: monitoring mobile workforces, fleets or supply chains.
Gabriela Styf Sjoman, Nokia chief strategy officer, said: “As organizations across the world move faster towards deployment of 5G enabled technologies, those who wish to be the first to leverage its potential cannot afford to lose more time. To capture the tremendous opportunities of 5G, organizations must start or intensify their planning now and accelerate business model innovation to remain competitive in a rapidly digitalizing global economy.”
