How many 5G Cell Towers & Base Stations Worldwide?
A question I often see people ask is how many cell towers / base stations are there worldwide? Surprisingly this information is not as easy to obtain as you may think initially.
NTT DOCOMO launched 5G commercial services based on NSA in March 2020, and further launched commercial services based on 5G SA in December 2021, which combines 5GC, a core network facility dedicated to 5G, and 5G radio base stations.
With millions of base stations in operation, 5G networks generate an enormous amount of data. It's estimated that 5G base stations worldwide produce more than 500 petabytes of data daily. This data includes network traffic, user behavior, and real-time analytics from connected devices. For telecom providers, managing this data is a major challenge.
In data collected between July 2022 and June 2024, China was reported to have had around 3.5 million 5G base stations installed across the country, with Chinese mobile operators investing heavily in 5G infrastructure. By comparison, the European Union had around 460,000 thousand base stations, while the United States had approximately 175,000.
Macro cells represented USD 22.9 billion and 61.3% of the 2024 5G base station market share, providing umbrella coverage and mobility anchor services. Yet small cells are forecast to expand at a 29.4% CAGR, pushing their slice of the 5G base station market size toward USD 50 billion by 2030.
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