Data usage per smartphone highest in India

With the availability of attractive data plans and higher video consumption among young users, monthly data usage per smartphone in India rose to 9.8 gigabytes (GB) at the end of 2018, the highest in the world, according to an Ericsson report released recently. Monthly data usage per smartphone would grow at 11 per cent to reach 18 GB by 2024 from 9.8 GB in 2018, said the Ericsson Mobility Report. The mobile data traffic a month in India is expected to increase at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 23 per cent to 16 exabytes (EB) by 2024 from 4.6 EB in 2018, it added.

According to the report, mobile video traffic is fuelling the data traffic growth as users are spending more time streaming and sharing video. As the evolution towards more advanced technologies continues in India, LTE (4G) is forecast to represent 82 per cent of mobile subscriptions by the end of 2024 compared with 38 per cent in 2018. The LTE subscription in India is expected to grow at 17 per cent CAGR from 450 million in 2018 to 1.16 billion in 2024.

The total mobile subscription in the world was around 7.9

billion in the first quarter of 2019, with 44 million subscriptions added in the quarter. However, in India, the number of subscriptions declined by 14 million, mainly due to introduction of a minimum regular recharge amount by some large operators to tackle lowpaying users and increase average revenue per user (ARPU), the report added. The number of smartphone subscriptions is forecast to reach 7.2 billion in 2024. At the end of 2018, there were 5.1 billion smartphone subscribers globally, 99 per cent of which were for 3G and 4G, said the report. ■