India Targets 1 Billion 5G Users by 2030, Aims To Lead World in 6G: Jyotiraditya Scindia
Scindia highlights telecom growth, BharatNet expansion and rising mobile manufacturing
New Delhi: Union communications minister Jyotiraditya Scindia on Thursday said that India is targeting to double its 5 G user base from 550 million to one billion by 2030. Besides, he also said that the country is resolved to lead the world in 6G.
Scindia further said that 5G in India has become the fastest-adopted 5G technology in the world. “Today we have 550 million users on 5G services. But we will not rest here. By 2030 our target is to take that number from 550 million to a billion customers on 5G,” he said while speaking at the inauguration of the 10th edition of the India Mobile Congress (IMC) 2026.
On 6G, the minister also said that the Bharat 6G Alliance, which has 90 institutions involved with it, has established 7,700 patents, of which 4,400 are international. “We were behind the world in 4G. We marched with the world on 5G. But it is our resolve that we will lead the world on 6G,” he said.
He also said that the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) Council has accepted India's proposal to host the Plenipotentiary Conference in 2030. “The ITU's World Telecommunication Standardisation Assembly (WTSA) was held in India for the first time in 2024 and described it as the largest WTSA held outside Geneva in the history of the ITU,” he added.
Tracing India's telecom journey since the first IMC in September 2017, Scindia further elaborated that the number of broadband customers has grown from 60 million to over 1.1 billion. The country now has 1.35 billion mobile customers. “The cost of 1 GB of data has fallen from Rs 268 in 2014 to Rs 8 now, which he described as the cheapest in the world,” he said.
The minister said that the $15 billion government-funded BharatNet programme would provide middle-mile connectivity to close to 2.6 lakh gram panchayats. “It will also give on-demand connectivity to the remaining 3.8 lakh villages, with a 100 Mbps connection to every home as demanded by citizens. On manufacturing, the mobile phone industry was worth about $2-3 billion in 2014 and is now a $63 billion industry,” he said.