Malaysia has the third fastest 5G network in the world, says Ookla

Malaysia has the third fastest 5G network in the world, with the best performance in South-East Asia as of September 2023, according to a report from Internet access and performance analytics platform Ookla.

In terms of speed, the country’s next-generation network has a median speed of 485.25Mbps when it comes to downloads, lagging behind only the United Arab Emirates (592.01Mbps) and South Korea (507.59Mbps).

When compared against its neighbours in the South-East Asian region, Malaysia takes the lead, with Singapore at 338.36Mbps, Thailand at 141.65Mbps, and the Philippines at 124.58Mbps.

Where Malaysia falls short however is in adoption, with only 30.1% of network-connected mobile devices that performed tests using Ookla’s platform utilising the new network.

This is lower than the other countries leading in this category, which mostly sit at above 50% adoption, with the United States at 69.3% and China at 68.6%.

Ookla’s data also states that 21.5% of 5G-capable devices in the country were not using the network, while the remaining 44.8% of the tests were done using devices without 5G support.

It is however worth noting that this data is not indicative of whether a user is subscribed to a 5G add-on, as they may have been on the 4G network when the test was performed.