Global research company OMDIA has released the second version of its Global 5G 
Progress Update, March 2020 report showing that South Korea is the leading 
country for 5G deployment in the twenty two leading 5G countries OMDIA analyzed 
for their deployment of 5G technology.

The OMDIA research assessed the deployment progress of 5G based on operator 
launches, network coverage, subscriber take-up as well as 5G spectrum 
availability and regulatory eco-system.

Based on these factors OMDIA's research concluded that South Korea – as it did 
in the 4G era – has established itself as the early market-leader for 5G 
technology deployment with Kuwait and Switzerland following behind.

"Korea is leading the way with adoption reaching 5.88 million at the end of 
March; approaching ten percent of wireless services in the market," the report 
says.

"However, expansive coverage rolled out by Sunrise and Swisscom in Switzerland, 
Ooredoo and Vodafone in Qatar and Kuwait three service providers has rivalled 
Korea for breadth of market coverage."

Commenting on the report OMDIA Principal Analyst Stephen Myers said:

"The global market is steadily gearing up for 5G deployment but right now South 
Korea is leading the way – although markets like Switzerland have also made 
steady progress.

"Despite the COVID pandemic we are seeing governments and regulators pushing 
ahead with their allocation of 5G spectrum and operators continue to launch and 
expand 5G network coverage.

"We can expect to see a much larger number of commercial 5G launches in major 
global markets in the next 12-18 months as more spectrum is released across the 
world."

Notes to Editors

Ranking Methodology

The ranking used in this report looks to assess the market 5G progress combine 
the following assessment criteria

1. Spectrum available – what is the total spectrum that has been released to 
service providers for 5G use. 
2. Service provider launches – how many service providers have launched 5G 
commercial services. In future editions this will extend to whether 5G services 
from MVNO have emerged 
3. Network coverage – what proportion of the population is covered by the live 
5G networks. Where specific disclosure have not been made, estimates based on 
announced deployment programs and coverage maps have been used 
4. 5G take-up – proportion of total mobile services active on the 5G network. 
This requires both a 5G enabled device and service plan. Omdia notes some 
service providers are bundling 5G access into existing service plans at no 
incremental charge.  
5. Ecosystem – a more subjective assessment of factors that enhance the 
adoption of 5G services and creation of value from 5G services. This includes 
government policy programs, vendors activities and investment, end-user 
sponsorship and service provider cooperation that facilitate network deployment 
and service take-up

The combination of these criteria reflect the readiness in markets yet to 
launch services and development in markets where 5G services have been 
launched. While using coverage metrics does advantage small geographies, where 
a large proportion of the population can be covered with 100's of base stations 
rather than 1,000's or 10,000's, broad and deep coverage remain prerequisite 
for the transition of services to 5G. As 5G services mature and as enterprise 
applications become more central to service provider offerings it can be 
expected the criteria for assessing 5G progress would evolve.

The criteria used reflect the foundational factors for each market (each 
allocated a 10% weighting)

- How much spectrum been made available for 5G services? 
- Have carriers been able to launch commercial services? 
- Is there are supportive local ecosystem promoting 5G services? 
- The balance of the ranking is split equally between measurable indicators of 
5G progress in the form of 
- Network coverage 
- Take-up

The rankings use a relative assessment, effectively assigning Korea a score of 
100% for the September quarter due to its global leadership across all five of 
the assessment criteria: 

- Spectrum – 2,680 MHz across the 3.5 and 28 GHz bands 
- Service launches – all three Korean service providers have commercial 
offerings available to the mass market, and MVNO services have been launched 
- Network coverage – approximately 90% population coverage 
- 5G take-up – 4.67 million 5G subscribers, or 7% of the mobile market 
- Ecosystem – Strong government support and leading local vendor ecosystem

Photo: https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/1308724/5G_Global_Ranking_March_2020.jpg

Source: Omdia