U MOBILE continues to lead in 5G availability and its users have the best experience when playing multiplayer mobile games over 5G connections, revealed a study by independent analytics company Opensignal.
“U Mobile wins the 5G Availability award as our U Mobile 5G users spend 37.7% of the time with an active 5G connection. This is up from U Mobile’s winning score of 31.9% in our last report. Digi comes in second with 36.3% and Maxis in third with a score of 35.2%,” Opensignal said in Malaysia Mobile Network Experience – November 2024.
It added that U Mobile also wins the 5G Games Experience award with a score of 88.1 on a 100-point scale. U Mobile’s score has increased by more than three points compared with that seen in the last report. Digi and Unifi share second place with statistically tied scores of 87–87.2 on a 100-point scale. U Mobile was also the 5G Global Winner for 5G Games Experience in the large land mass group in Opensignal’s recent 5G Global Mobile Network Experience Awards.
The government has recently given approval to U Mobile to deploy the country’s second 5G network as national wholesale provider Digital Nasional Bhd now covers more than 80% of the population with 5G.
Biggest mobile players
Opensignal said as was the case in its last report, no single operator dominates Opensignal’s Mobile Experience Award.
“Once again Digi and Unifi come closest, each winning five awards in total – either outright or jointly. U Mobile wins four. Maxis wins three including Consistent Quality and Reliability Experience. Celcom wins three and Yes wins two.”
With speeds of up to 290.3Mbps, Unifi handily won the 5G Download Speed Award, along with the 5G Video Experience Award with a score of 77.7 on a 100-point scale. This is more than two points higher than the second place finish for Digi.
Maxis also became the first Malaysian operator to win Opensignal’s new Reliability Experience award, along with the Consistent Quality award.
In terms of overall experience, Digi won the Voice App Experience, Download Speed Experience and Upload Speed Experience awards, beating out Celcom, Unifi and U Mobile from Opensignal’s previous report.
Overall experience
Digi leads the pack by winning three key awards: Voice App Experience, Download Speed Experience and Upload Speed Experience. The operator achieved a 79.9-point score in voice quality, provided the fastest download speeds at 66.6 Mbps and delivered the highest upload speeds at 14.2 Mbps. This represents substantial improvements, particularly in download speeds in which Digi has increased by over 30 Mbps from the previous report.
Unifi has also claimed victory in the Video Experience and Games Experience categories. With a Video Experience score of 67.8 points, Unifi enables users to stream high-quality 720p videos with minimal stalling. In the Games Experience category, Unifi scored 76.6 points, indicating a highly responsive and enjoyable gaming experience with near-immediate action feedback.
Most operators fall within the “Good” or “Acceptable” performance ranges across categories. The report highlights that users can expect satisfactory streaming, gaming and communication experiences. Notable improvements were seen across the board, with operators such as U Mobile showing significant score increases, particularly in the Games Experience category.
5G experience
Unifi leads the 5G Video Experience with a 77.7-point score, narrowly beating Digi’s 75.5 points. All operators fall within the “Very Good” category, enabling users to stream high-quality 1080p videos with minimal stalling. The report highlights the use of adaptive bitrate streaming technology, which accurately represents real-world video experiences up to 4K quality.
In the 5G Games Experience, U Mobile claims the top spot with an 88.1-point score. Most operators, including Maxis, Celcom, Digi, U Mobile and Unifi, are rated “Excellent”, indicating near–instantaneous game responsiveness and minimal action delays. Meanwhile, Yes falls into the “Good” category.
U Mobile also dominates the 5G Voice App Experience with 83.9 points, replacing Digi from its previous first-place position. All operators are categorised as “Good”, suggesting generally satisfactory call quality with occasional minor impairments.
The 5G Download Speed category sees Unifi triumph with 290.3 Mbps, outpacing Maxis, Digi and U Mobile by 15 Mbps. Yes showed notable improvement, increasing its download speeds by 16 Mbps from the previous report.
In the 5G Upload Speed arena, Digi and Celcom share the top spot with statistically tied scores of 34.1–34.3 Mbps, followed closely by Maxis. Notably, U Mobile experienced a significant 20 Mbps drop in upload speeds.
Coverage and consistency
In terms of coverage, Celcom continues its dominance in the Coverage Experience category, securing the top spot with 8.3 points on a 10-point scale. The operator maintains a lead of two points over Maxis and Digi, which are statistically tied at 6.7–6.8 points. U Mobile, Unifi, and Yes trail behind, with Yes occupying the last spot at 3.6 points.
Interestingly, all operators share an identical 5G Coverage Experience score of 2.88 points, suggesting relatively uniform 5G coverage across the network providers.
On which operator is the most consistent with its network, Maxis clinched the Consistent Quality award with a razor-thin margin of 67.3%, narrowly edging out Digi at 67.1%. Unifi follows in third place with 64.7% while Celcom, U Mobile and Yes complete the ranking. The most improvement comes from Celcom, which saw an impressive 18 percentage point increase from the previous report.
The Consistent Quality metric is a comprehensive assessment of network performance, evaluating the ability to support mobile application requirements across multiple indicators including download speed, upload speed, latency, jitter, packet loss and time to first byte. Essentially, it measures whether networks can reliably support users’ typical demanding tasks.
Highlighting key achievements by the country’s biggest mobile network players and along with evolving trends, the report showcased how operators are competing and innovating connectivity.
For the methodology, Opensignal examined the mobile network experience of six main mobile operators in Malaysia over a period of 90 days from Aug 10 to Oct 29.
