North America leads in 5G Standalone (SA) adoption acceleration — with its SA share growing from 8.2% in the first quarter of 2023 to 29.9% in the fourth quarter of 2025 — according to a new Ookla/Omdia report on the global state of 5G Standalone.

In the last year, the market’s emphasis has shifted from a concentration on coverage to a concentration on capability, according to the report, which adds that median 5G download speeds in the U.S. are now running five times as fast as they are in Europe. The U.S. also leads Europe in completed Tier-1 SA launches.

Other notable U.S. advances in this area include:

• All major U.S. carriers now operate standalone infrastructure: in 2025, AT&T and Verizon launched nationwide 5G standalone (SA) networks in 2025, joining T-Mobile.
• The country’s 5G SA sample share grew from 24% to 32% year-over-year.
• The U.S. median download speeds on SA networks reached 404 Mbps, more than double NSA performance.

Globally, 5G SA availability based on Ookla Speedtest sample share reached 17.6% in the fourth quarter of 2025, up slightly from 16.2% a year earlier.

According to the report, the global median 5G SA download speed of 269.51 Mbps is 52% higher than non-standalone networks. The report notes, though, that there is significant variation by region due to a variety of different factors.

Other report findings include:

• Enterprise network slicing is accelerating much more rapidly and achieved a breakthrough with T-Mobile’s SuperMobile launch, the first U.S.-based, nationwide commercial B2B slicing service.
• North America records the lowest regional absolute 5G SA cloud and gaming latency.
• China continues to dominate the SA sector in Asia with 80.9% 5G SA sample share and over 10 million 5G Advanced subscribers.

Europe’s 5G SA sample share more than doubled from 1.1% to 2.8% between the fourth quarter of 2024 and the fourth quarter of 2025.