Suara Sherif
The 6G era is coming, and it will arrive with 2.4 billion connections by 2035, according to a new forecast by GSMA Intelligence that maps the next decade of mobile technology.
The research firm projects that 6G will have about 50 million connections by the end of 2030, representing just 0.5 percent of the global mobile connections base.
Adoption will then accelerate sharply, reaching about 275 million connections in 2031, nearly 740 million in 2032, and exceeding one billion in 2033.
By 2034, that figure rises to 1.9 billion before hitting 2.4 billion in 2035. But 6G will not replace 5G overnight.
By the end of 2035, 5G is still expected to account for about 60 percent of global mobile connections, compared with 23 percent for 6G and 17 percent for 4G.
The first half of the 2030s will therefore be defined by the coexistence of multiple generations of mobile technology. The groundwork is already being laid.
The International Telecommunication Union established the IMT-2030 framework for 6G in 2023, and draft technical performance requirements were agreed upon in February 2026.
These cover six usage scenarios, including ubiquitous connectivity, artificial intelligence and communications, and integrated sensing and communications.
GSMA Intelligence expects the earliest 6G adoption to be concentrated in advanced mobile markets in East Asia, North America and parts of Europe.
China is poised to lead, with more than half of its connections forecast to use 6G by 2035.
About half of North America’s mobile connections are projected to migrate to 6G by the end of 2035, while Europe is expected to follow with about one-quarter of connections.
Emerging markets, however, will lag. GSMA Intelligence forecasts that 6G penetration will remain below 10 percent in several emerging-market regions by 2035, partly because operators will still be expanding 5G coverage and adoption.
For Nigeria, the transition remains a distant prospect: 4G accounted for 54.31 percent of subscribers in July 2026, while 5G stood at just 4.74 percent, according to the Nigerian Communications Commission.
2G still accounted for 36.54 percent and 3G for 4.42 percent.
Yet the pressure on network capacity will only intensify.
Global mobile network traffic is forecast to more than quadruple from about 144 exabytes per month in 2025 to 604 exabytes per month in 2035, driven not only by video but also by artificial intelligence, extended reality and 5G fixed wireless access.
Meeting that demand will require spectrum.
The GSMA estimates that countries with high population densities could need 2 to 2.5GHz of mid-band spectrum between 2035 and 2040, compared with about 1GHz currently identified for mobile use in most countries.
That points to an additional requirement of 1 to 2GHz of mid-band spectrum, alongside improvements in spectral efficiency and greater network densification.
The 6G era is coming.
For Nigeria and other emerging markets, the message is clear: the foundations must be laid now, through spectrum planning, infrastructure investment and sustained expansion of existing networks, or the gap between the connected and the disconnected will only widen.
