India, the world’s second biggest smartphone market, has seen traffic grow more than 60 times over the past five years and mobile users now consume about 13.5GB of data each month, a study of the subcontinent’s mobile market by Finnish telecommunications equipment vendor Nokia has found.
The Nokia MBiT Index 2021 looks at mobile broadband performance in India, evaluating the use of 4G and 3G, and also examines the device ecosystem for 4G and VoLTE devices in the country.
The report also provides a glance at how COVID-19 has affected broadband performance, particularly fixed broadband, which is changing overall data consumption patterns.
The report said in 2020 data traffic in India grew by 36% year-on-year primarily due to a rise in 4G data consumption as 4G subscribers crossed 700 million, with 100 million new additions during the year. 4G alone made up nearly 99% of total data traffic consumed.
Indians now spend about five hours on their smartphones every and they consume more data than their Chinese counterparts, the report found.
But the country has only 22 million fixed broadband users, representing 7.5% of households. Even though 5G is yet to be rolled, there is mobile broadband penetration of about 63% and two million 5G devices are being used across the country. The total population is put at 1.35 billion, going by a 2018 estimate.
On the downside, there are about 100 million subscribers who own LTE-capable devices but are still on 2G/3G services.
According to the study, the average monthly data usage per user reached 13.5GB in December 2020, growing more than 20% annually due to an increase in data subscribers and mobile video consumption.
New users from rural areas also contributed to this rise, with mobile devices emerging as a primary source of entertainment and productivity. The short video format was the fastest-growing content category.
With surging Internet users, the report said total time spent monthly on short content was expected to grow by a factor of four by 2025.
Sanjay Malik, senior vice-president and head of India Market, Nokia, said: “5G has a huge potential for value creation in India as the pace of digitisation is accelerating.
“The phenomenal growth in data consumption in India will drive demand for enhanced broadband and fixed capacity. Industry 4.0 with various IoT and enterprise use-cases, immersive applications experience (AR/VR), smart homes, factory and public safety use cases will spur LTE, 5G growth and data usage further.”
The report said fixed broadband revenue was forecast to grown 1.5 times by 2025.
