‘Indians’ data use rose 20% in December’

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The average monthly data usage per user in India increased 20% year-on-year to 13.5 GB in December as Indians spent about five hours daily on a smartphone, as per the Mobile Broadband India Traffic Index (MBiT) 2021.

The smartphone emerged as the primary source of entertainment and productivity amid the pandemic, according to the study released by Nokia on Thursday.

As per the study, The average monthly data usage per user in India stood at 11.2 GB in December 2019.

“The growth was driven by an increase in data subscribers and mobile video consumption,” it said

“New users from rural areas also contributed to the rising monthly data usage,” as per the study.

“The smartphone usage increased four times to about five hours per day — one of the highest averages globally,” the study said.

It added that the short-video format was the fastest-growing content category with a total of 110 billion minutes spent on short content per month. “With surging internet users, total time spent monthly on short content is expected to grow four times by 2025,” it added.

The total data traffic grew by 36% year-on-year in 2020, primarily due to rise in 4G data consumption. With 100 million new additions, 4G subscribers surpassed 700 million during the year, consuming about 99% of overall mobile data traffic. The report added that the 4G device base surpassed 607 million units reaching a 77% penetration level. However, about 100 million subscribers having LTE capable devices are still on 2G/3G services.