The trends are shaped by affordability, infrastructure investment, policy and network performance, rather than a simple Wi‑Fi‑versus‑mobile narrative.
According to a Oct – Dec 2025 data analysis* of 12 key markets in the Asia Pacific region (APAC) by a mobile‑network analytics firm, smartphone users in the region in the last three months of 2025 were increasingly splitting into two distinct connectivity camps, with emerging markets leaning toward Wi‑Fi, while more mature markets gravitate toward mobile data.
The data shows that fixed‑broadband connections including Wi‑Fi still carry about 62% of total smartphone data traffic, but some countries are moving in opposite directions, driven by infrastructure economics, policy and 5G maturity.
In emerging economies such as India and Indonesia, which have historically relied heavily on cellular networks due to limited fixed‑line infrastructure, smartphone usage is shifting toward Wi‑Fi as fiber and fixed‑wireless‑access (FWA) roll‑outs expand and broadband prices fall. Government‑backed digital‑society initiatives and public Wi‑Fi programs, such as India’s PM‑WANI, are also pulling users away from mobile data and onto free or low‑cost home and public Wi‑Fi networks.
By contrast, in more developed markets such as Taiwan and Malaysia, mobile data is gaining share, with cellular now accounting for over half of smartphone traffic in some cases. Here, standalone 5G deployments and unlimited prepaid data plans are making mobile robust enough to replace fixed access for everyday tasks, while national infrastructure projects such as Malaysia’s Jendela initiative are extending 4G/5G coverage to underserved areas and increasing time spent on mobile networks.
Also, mature markets such as Australia and Singapore have been gravitating towards mobile, as 5G improves network quality and lowers data prices. Still, Wi-Fi remains the default for heavy data use: regional smartphone users consume a disproportionately larger share of data over Wi-Fi relative to the time spent on it, showing continued preference for high-volume usage, according to the data.
According to the source — Opensignal’s principal data analyst, Robert Wyrzykowski — the observed trends suggest that a one‑size‑fits‑all connectivity strategy no longer works across APAC: operators in mobile‑dominant markets will need to prioritize 5G capacity, while those in Wi‑Fi‑shifting markets may find better returns in FWA or fiber‑convergence plays.
Nevertheless, Wyrzykowski argues that the real story is a “great divergence” shaped by affordability, infrastructure investment, policy and network performance, rather than a simple Wi‑Fi‑versus‑mobile narrative.
* Results are based on anonymized, crowd‑sourced network measurements collected under normal usage conditions; as with any such dataset, findings may be affected by sampling, coverage and measurement limitations
