Report: 29% rise in data consumption in Q3 FY2017

The Reliance Jio phenomenon that ruled the telecom space for over a year with its free offer, pushed data consumption in the India for third quarter (October-December) of FY 2017 by 29 per cent. This phenomenon worked in the favour of other players too who introduced affordable data packages attracting new subscribers, stated the report by Kantar IMRB and MMA.

The report ‘Smartphone Usage and Behaviour Report Overview – India’ also stated that the free/cheap data attracted around 28 million new subscribers, with 20 million subscribers coming from Reliance Jio that is 72 per cent of the over subscription. However, the major entrant Reliance Jio’s market share was 6.4 per cent. The largest players continued to be Vodafone, Airtel and Idea with combined share of 60 per cent.

Access to free or cheap data also changed the consumption pattern or in other words it allowed users to consume more content on smartphones. The report further revealed that the time spent on smartphones daily was equal to the time spent on TV by the TV consumers the entire week. It was stated that there was an increase of 29 per cent in time spent on smartphones which stands at approximately 4 hours daily spent on smartphones. It is estimated that 262 million urban population access internet on their mobile devices.

In order to understand the existing feature phones segment, Kantar IMRB and MMA conducted a survey. In that report, it was stated that feature phone consumers are not just avid consumers of television but also print and radio. The report of Kantar IMRB & MMA which focus on feature Phone usage and behaviour report [overview] – India 2016-17 also revealed that feature phone users spend 4 times more time watching TV compared to the national average.

As per the data around the feature phone segment, over 86 per cent of the urban Indian population owns a mobile phone and 56 per cent of this user base actually users of feature phones. The report stated that feature phone users are 1.4 times more likely to access the internet from their handset than a laptop or desktop device.