With a median 5G download speed of 451.79 megabytes per second (Mbps), higher than the download speeds of Singapore, Thailand, and the Philippines, Malaysia maintains its lead in Southeast Asia for 5G network performance.
As per Ookla, a prominent global provider of connectivity intelligence, the 5G median download speed in Singapore is 329.73 Mbps, while in Thailand it is 129.40 Mbps and in the Philippines it is 125.14 Mbps.
According to the report, with a 97.3 percent consistency score for the fourth quarter of 2023 (Q4 2023), Malaysia's 5G network achieved the highest consistency score worldwide.
“The result indicates that 97.3 percent of Speedtest Intelligence samples on Malaysia’s 5G networks exceeded the consistency threshold, which is currently set at a minimum download speed of 25 Mbps and a minimum upload speed of 3 Mbps,” the report indicated in its Q4 2023 Speedtest Intelligence summary. Furthermore, Malaysia's 5G availability increased from 21.0% in Q1 2023 to 27.0% in Q4 2023.
In 2021, Malaysia opted to implement 5G through a Single Wholesale Network (SWN) model, leading to the establishment of Malaysia's Digital Nasional Bhd (DNB) as a key component of this strategy.
“Since its launch more than two years ago, Malaysia’s 5G network has consistently performed well, making it one of the best-performing 5G networks worldwide,” the report continued.
The report also noted that the mobile speeds in every state in Malaysia have increased by at least 1.45 times across all technologies combined.
“Malaysia’s government administrative city of Putrajaya emerged as having the fastest mobile median download speeds in the country at 190.86 Mbps, an increase of more than 2.5 times compared to Q4 2022, which was at 61.24 Mbps,” the report outlined.
Although 5G availability in Malaysia has seen some improvement, it falls short compared to neighboring countries with established commercial 5G networks. In Q4 2023, Malaysia's 5G availability stood at 27.0%, almost half of Singapore's (53.7%) and 20 percentage points lower than Thailand's (45.5%). Malaysia's 5G availability marginally surpassed that of the Philippines, which was 26.2%.
