India has the highest average data usage per smartphone in the world, according to the latest Ericsson Mobility Report released on Tuesday. The average mobile data usage reached 9.8 GB per month in the Indian region (which also includes Nepal and Bhutan) by end-2018.
This figure is expected to rise up to 18 GB per user in five years time, according to the report. This will be primarily fuelled by a burgeoning demand, and consumption, of video content. The report says about 75 per cent of data will be used for video by 2024. Additionally, smartphone consumers indicate that they expect 5G to bring the network performance needed for immersive media formats and apps.
The number of smartphone users in the region is expected to reach 1.1 billion during the same period.
“LTE will remain the most dominant access technology in the region up to 2024 even as 5G subscriptions are expected to grow. We found that Indian smartphone users are willing to pay more than 66 per cent premium for 5G services,” said Ericsson India head Nitin Bansal. “More than half of smartphone users in India expect their (network) provider to switch to 5G or will wait a maximum of six months before moving to another provider that does,” he added.
The report also projects that total mobile data usage per month in the country will go up 23 per cent in the coming five years, rising from 4.6 exabytes (EB) presently to 16 EB. One EB equals one billion GB.