India aims to double its 5G user base from 550 million to one billion by 2030, Communications Minister Jyotiraditya Scindia said on Thursday, adding that the country, which was behind the world in 4G, is resolved to lead the world in 6G.
Speaking at the inauguration of the 10th edition of the India Mobile Congress (IMC) 2026, Scindia said 5G in India has become the fastest-adopted 5G technology in the world.
“Today we have 550 million users on 5G…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. On 6G, Scindia said 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.
The minister said the ITU (International Telecommunication Union) Council has accepted India’s proposal to host the Plenipotentiary Conference in 2030.
He noted that 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.
Tracing India’s telecom journey since the first IMC in September 2017, Scindia said 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.
Speaking about digital public infrastructure, he said UPI accounts for 84 per cent of digital transactions in India, and 49 per cent of the world’s digital transactions take place in India.
UPI processes 260 billion transactions a year worth USD 3.4 trillion, and the technology has been taken to 11 other countries, he said.
The minister said the USD 15 billion government-funded BharatNet programme will 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, he said the mobile phone industry was worth about USD 2-3 billion in 2014 and is now a USD 63 billion industry.
India is now the world’s second-largest mobile phone producer, and exports are close to USD 29 billion.
