The latest report on the value of the French 5G market: 100% 5G network expected by 2030
According to foreign media reports, in December 2021, Arthur D. Little released a report on behalf of several French telecommunications organizations, which assessed the value of the 5G market in France.
According to the study, the French 5G ecosystem is well established and generated nearly 2 billion euros ($2.26 billion) in revenue in 2020. About half of that came from network construction by Orange, Bouygues Telecom, SFR and Free, while the other half came from the sale of 5G end-user equipment. However, 5G postpaid plan subscribers contributed only 13 million euros ($14.7 million) in revenue.
Looking ahead, French annual 5G investment is expected to be between 1.5 billion euros ($1.69 billion) and 2.2 billion euros ($2.48 billion), while 5G revenue is expected to increase to 23 billion euros ($26 billion) to 280 million euros by 2027 billion euros ($3.16 billion), depending on the pace of adoption of 5G solutions.
By 2027, five verticals are expected to account for around 75% of direct spending on commercial applications in the French market, broken down as follows:
Industry 4.0: EUR 1.3-1.9 billion (USD 1.5-2.2 billion);
Transportation: EUR 800-1.2 billion (USD 900-1.4 billion);
Energy and water: EUR 250-400 million (USD 280-450 million);
Health: EUR 330-500 million (USD 375-570 million);
Agriculture: EUR 330-500 million (USD 375-570 million).
The 5G ecosystem also supported 250 companies in 2020, of which 180 were French companies with between 6,000 and 8,000 employees. In the long run, the number of jobs is expected to increase to 100,000.
Work on building the 5G network officially began in September 2020 after France auctioned off spectrum in the 3.5GHz band. All four of the aforementioned French operators launched their 5G networks at the end of 2020 and started marketing their first 5G services.
French operators now offer 5G plans with large amounts of data, although Orange and Bouygues currently cap their plans at 200GB. SFR offers 5G unlimited plans, while users can also get 5G unlimited plans from Free - as long as they subscribe to any of Free's Freebox home broadband and TV plans.
Each national operator (France) with a 5G license must deploy 3,000 5G sites by 2022, while by 2024 each operator must deploy more than 8,000 sites (including areas with low population density, according to the study) of 4000). 5G slices are expected to be available from 2023, and by 2030 the (French) network should be "100% 5G".
Free, owned by Iliad, is well ahead of its rivals in the commercial deployment of 5G sites, according to the latest figures from French telecoms regulator Arcep.
As of September 30, 2021, Free has deployed 12,000 5G sites, most of which are in the 700MHz-800MHz band. This is followed by Bouygues Telecom with 5,003 5G sites, followed by SFR, owned by Altice France, with 3,160 sites, and finally Orange with 2,473 sites. Despite this, Orange has the largest number of sites deployed in the 3.5GHz band (about 2,177). Orange, Bouygues Telecom and SFR are also using the 1.8GHz and 2.1GHz bands for 5G.
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