Every Indian Consumes 11GB Data/Month, More Than US, China; 96% Of Data Used Was 4G, 3G Loses 30% Share

Thanks to super tailored and affordable data packs available today, along with budget and pocket friendly smartphones, the average data consumption per user in India has grown to about 11.2 GB a month, according to telecom gear maker Nokia.

Monthly Usage of 4G Data by Indians

In its annual Mobile Broadband India Traffic Index report, Nokia tallied that the overall data traffic in India increased by 47% in 2019, driven by continued 4G consumption.

4G data constitute 96% of the total data traffic consumed across the country, while 3G data traffic registered its highest ever decline of 30%.

In fact, the data consumption in India is probably the highest globally, ahead of markets like China, the US, France, South Korea, Japan, Germany and Spain. However, broadband penetration in India is at 47%, which is significantly lower than China (95%) and other European nations at around 95 -115%.

Nokia also stated that mobile data usage in India can increase further as broadband penetration approaches the level of similar developed geographies. Also, data prices in India are among the lowest in the world at about Rs 7 per GB.

The number of 4G data users in the country is estimated to be 598 million, while that of 3G were at about 44 million. Also, generally 1 GB data allows users to stream about 200 songs or watch an hour of video. The amount of data consumed goes up depending on the quality of the content being streamed.

OTT Platforms Contribute Majorly

Video consumption in the country has been on the rise with spurt in number of over-the-top (OTT) platforms like Netflix, Amazon Prime Video and more. Players are adopting aggressive distribution and pricing strategies, including sachet pricing and mobile-only packs.

It has been found that the average time spent on OTT platforms in India is about 70 minutes a day and an average single session lasts for about 40 minutes.

The upcoming 4K/8K videos and Industry 4.0 solutions that promises to enhance productivity and bring down expenses for the industries across different verticals, demand ultra high speed and extremely low latency.

The report noted that the number of 4G handsets devices grew by 1.5 times to reach 501 million units in 2019 from 330 million a year-ago. The number of Voice over LTE (VoLTE)-enabled smartphones grew to 432 million.