GSMA: India Must Turn Digital Scale Into Economic Growth and Trust
With nearly 1.2 billion active mobile connections and about 450 million 5G connections, India has built one of the world’s largest digital ecosystems. The GSMA says the next challenge is converting that scale into enterprise growth, AI-ready infrastructure and greater trust in digital services.
NEW DELHI — India must turn its world-leading mobile connectivity into greater economic value while making digital trust a foundation of its growing digital economy, the GSMA said as it launched three new reports at India Mobile Congress 2026.
India has around 1.2 billion active mobile connections and almost 450 million 5G connections, giving it one of the largest connected populations in the world.
The GSMA said the next phase of India's digital development would depend on building AI-ready networks, accelerating enterprise digitisation, strengthening digital trust and supporting open and interoperable global standards for 6G.
“India has demonstrated that it can deliver digital scale. The opportunity now is to turn that scale into innovation, enterprise growth and trusted digital services,” GSMA Director General Vivek Badrinath said in his keynote at the congress.
“India’s next decade will be defined not simply by how many people are connected, but by what they can achieve through that connectivity. Digital trust is not simply a safeguard. It is infrastructure for growth.”
The GSMA's India Ecosystem Insight Report: From Mobile Connectivity to Digital Infrastructure identifies three priorities for converting connectivity into wider economic value: AI-ready networks, enterprise digitisation and digital trust.
The report said India's artificial intelligence ambitions would require high-capacity, secure and resilient networks capable of supporting increasingly demanding applications.
AI itself could also improve network planning, energy efficiency, service assurance, cybersecurity and fraud detection, creating opportunities for telecommunications infrastructure to become more intelligent while supporting broader economic activity.
Enterprise digitisation represents another major opportunity, with technologies including fixed wireless access, private networks, cloud connectivity, network application programming interfaces and cybersecurity services helping businesses adopt digital tools and expand productivity.
At the same time, the GSMA said digital trust would become increasingly important as India's digital economy expands. Secure authentication, fraud prevention and privacy-preserving network intelligence are expected to play a growing role in protecting consumers and businesses.
The GSMA's Digital Nations 2026: Building Trusted Digital Ecosystems in Asia Pacific, which assesses 22 countries across infrastructure, innovation, data governance, security and people, identifies four foundations of digital trust: verifiable identities, authentic communications, resilient networks and responsible sharing of trusted information.
For India, the report said progress in digital infrastructure and security now provides a platform for greater enterprise adoption and innovation, but achieving that potential will require closer coordination between government, regulators, telecommunications operators, financial institutions and digital platforms.
Consumer protection remains a major part of the challenge.
The GSMA's India Consumer Scam Report 2026: Permission Granted, Cases Still Open found that 12% of respondents said they had been scammed during the previous year, while 72% said the growing risk of scams had changed their behaviour.
Although 86% of victims reported their cases to an organisation, 33% of reported cases remained unresolved, while 67% of victims who lost money recovered none of their losses. The findings also point to a direct relationship between effective responses and public confidence in data use.
Among respondents whose cases had been resolved, 88% were comfortable with the government using their data, compared with 64% among those whose cases remained unresolved. The GSMA said faster case resolution, improved recovery mechanisms and closer cooperation between public authorities, banks, mobile operators and digital platforms would be critical to strengthening consumer confidence.
Network APIs could provide another layer of protection. Indian operators including Airtel, Reliance Jio and Vodafone Idea support GSMA Open Gateway, which provides common technical frameworks for services including number verification and SIM-swap signals.
The GSMA said further work on trusted data sharing, network API signals and Open Verifiable Communications was progressing through its United Against Scams programme and the Asia Pacific Cross Sector Anti Scam Taskforce, which brings together 39 organisations across 17 countries.
India also has an opportunity to play a greater role in shaping the global development of 6G. The GSMA said mobile operators and industry partners across Asia Pacific, including the Bharat 6G Alliance, had signed the GSMA's Tokyo Accord, supporting open, interoperable and trusted digital ecosystems for the 6G era.
“India’s global leadership can be manifested through innovation in building 6G, which is to be a truly global standard,” Badrinath said.
“Open, interoperable and trusted global standards allow innovation to travel, so people and businesses everywhere can benefit.”
The GSMA is showcasing its work on digital trust, cross-sector action against scams and network APIs through its pavilion at India Mobile Congress 2026 in New Delhi. The organisation is also using the event to highlight GSMA Fusion, which brings together enterprises, operators and channel partners to examine the commercial potential of network APIs.
