Türkiye’s 5G rollout drives record telecom investments in Q1

Türkiye’s investments in electronic communications reached a record 263 billion Turkish lira ($5.6 billion) in the first quarter of the year, marking a 1,300% surge year‑on‑year, driven by the recent 5G auction fees and subsequent rollout, Transport and Infrastructure Minister Abdulkadir Uraloğlu said. The 5G network’s launch on April 1, following the service auction in October 2025, saw nationwide subscriptions surpass 43 million, with operators expanding fiber‑optic networks by 12.8% to meet demand for high‑speed and low‑latency connectivity.

Fiber expansion and broadband growth

Uraloğlu said Türkiye’s total fiber‑optic cable length rose from 618,000 kilometres in Q1 2025 to 697,000 kilometres, “enough to circle the Earth some 17 times.” The overall broadband Internet subscriber base reached 99.5 million, with fiber subscriptions seeing sector‑leading growth of 29.2%. The mobile market remained strong with around 86 million individual subscribers and 12.3 million machine‑to‑machine connections.

Call traffic and market mobility

Mobile users generated around 71.8 billion minutes of total call traffic, compared to 1.3 billion minutes on fixed networks. Türkiye continued to record Europe’s highest average monthly mobile call duration at 439 minutes per subscriber. Market mobility remained strong with around 3.5 million mobile subscribers porting their phone numbers between GSM operators. The rapid 5G adoption and fiber expansion underscore Türkiye’s commitment to digital transformation and its position as a regional telecommunications hub.