Much of mobile’s gains in the coming years will come in the Asia Pacific region, with China playing a leading role in driving mobile subscriber and 5G market gains, new forecasts from GSMA indicate.

According to GSMA’s newly released “Mobile Economy: Asia Pacific” report, China will account for a whopping 21 percent – or 155 million – of the estimated 753 million new mobile subscribers expected to come online globally by the end of 2020. The country’s influence will be dwarfed only by that of India, which is forecast to account for 27 percent, or 206 million, of that 753 million new subscriber figure.

The gains are expected to come from an increase in mobile penetration across the Asia Pacific region, which is expected to increase from two-thirds of the population in 2016 to three-quarters in 2020.

“Asia’s mobile industry will be the main engine of global subscriber growth for the remainder of the decade, connecting almost half a billion new customers across the region by 2020,” Mats Granryd, GSMA’s director general, observed. “We are also seeing a dramatic shift to mobile broadband networks, particularly 4G, which is providing a platform for a rich range of innovative new services across both developed and emerging markets in the region. Meanwhile, advanced operators in Asia are set to become among the first in the world to launch commercial 5G networks before the end of the decade.”

A separate study from GSMA Intelligence and the China Academy of Information and Communications Technology (CAICT) indicates China will be at the forefront of that 5G push.

According to GSMA and CAICT, China is expected to launch commercial 5G networks in 2020, which will help establish the country as the world’s biggest 5G market by 2025. Specifically, China will account for around 39 percent – or 428 million – of the 1.1 billion global 5G connections expected in 2025.