The rollout of 5G services in Türkiye has accelerated investment across the telecommunications sector, with total spending in electronic communications rising more than 50% last year, a senior official said Wednesday.
Total investment in the electronic communications sector reached TL 145 billion ($3.26 billion) by the end of 2025, up 54% from TL 94.1 billion a year earlier, Transport and Infrastructure Minister Abdulkadir Uraloğlu told Anadolu Agency (AA).
The increase came as operators sped up infrastructure works to support the commercial launch of 5G services, which became available on April 1.
Türkiye had nearly 99.7 million mobile subscribers by the end of last year, including machine-to-machine connections, Uraloğlu said.
Excluding M2M lines and children aged birth to 9 years old, the country's mobile penetration rate stood at 116.9%.
The number of 3G subscribers fell to 6.4 million, while 4.5G users reached 91.2 million.
Türkiye now has more than 32 million 5G-compatible devices, and around 21 million subscribers have already begun using 5G services as the technology is gradually rolled out across all 81 provinces.
Uraloğlu said there were 412 operators active in the electronic communications sector at the end of last year, with a total of 767 authorizations granted.
Fixed-line subscribers totaled 8.39 million, while mobile traffic reached about 312.5 billion minutes and fixed-line traffic totaled 5.06 billion minutes, bringing total voice traffic to around 317.6 billion minutes.
Broadband internet subscriptions exceeded 97.4 million.
Uraloğlu said the launch of 5G marked a major step in the development of Türkiye's mobile broadband infrastructure.
He said the technology would not only provide faster mobile internet but also support new applications in sectors ranging from health care and manufacturing to education and finance.
"In today's world, where access speed is becoming as important as producing data, operators have rapidly implemented 5G infrastructure investments so that high-speed mobile internet can be used in every corner of the country," Uraloğlu said.
As part of those efforts, operators built 681,000 kilometers of fiber infrastructure to support the nationwide expansion of 5G services.
