Malaysia is ranked No 2 in terms of 5G download speed experience among 13 countries in Asia Pacific with an average 295.5Mbps, with South Korea ranking first with 427.5Mbps, according to a new Opensignal report.
In terms of upload speed experience, Malaysia comes in third with 34Mbps, behind South Korea (52.2Mbps) and Taiwan (35.4Mbps).
"This performance is achieved through Malaysia’s 5G wholesale network where 5G availability ranks in the top five for APAC markets at 31.8%. Despite this positive performance from a network perspective, Malaysia’s MNOs are now bidding to build the country’s second 5G network," Opensignal said in the report.
The Benchmarking The Asia Pacific Mobile Network Experience report, released today (Sept 25), is based on data gathered by Opensignal between April 1 and June 30, 2024. Opensignal is an analytics company that offers independent insights into mobile network performance and user connectivity experiences.
It stated that Malaysia is among the countries recording the largest speed uplift between 4G and 5G in Asia Pacific, where over 37% of Malaysia's total connection are 5G connections.
When it comes to 5G availability, Malaysia ranks fourth with 31.8%, behind India (52.1%), Singapore (35.9%) and South Korea (34%). According to Opensignal, the availability metric measures what proportion of time people have a network connection, in the places they most commonly frequent.
Then in terms of 5G coverage experience, which measures the geographic 5G coverage of populated areas to reflect expectations and experiences of typical users, Opensignal said the city state of Singapore "shines" with nearly universal coverage.
Singapore ranked first with a score of 9.0 while Malaysia came in at 10th place with 2.6, indicating more efforts are needed to achieve broader and more consistent coverage across the country.
Communications Minister Fahmi Fadzil on Sept 17 said Malaysia has achieved 81.9% 5G coverage in populated areas across the country where a total of 7,191 5G sites have been developed nationwide, adding that the government is committed towards expanding access.