The Japanese government assigned the three largest mobile operators in Japan — NTT Docomo, KDDI au and Softbank, as well as new arrival Rakuten Mobile — 5G spectrum in April 2019.
In the coming years, the four Japanese carriers are expected to spend more than $14 billion combined in capital expenditures, including investments in base stations, servers and fiber optics, to build out their 5G networks.
Data gathered by Fitch Research indicates that 5G will become the dominant cellular technology in Japan by 2026 and that by 2029, there will be roughly 45 million 4G subscriptions and more than 151 million 5G subscriptions in the country.
