India’s overall data traffic rose by 47 per cent in 2019 and the 3G data traffic faced its highest-ever decline of a record 30 per cent, according to a study done by Nokia.
4G constituted 96 per cent of the total data traffic consumed across the country, according to Nokia’s annual Mobile Broadband India Traffic Index (MBiT).
The average monthly data usage per user grew 16 per cent annually due to myriad reasons like low data prices, the barrage of videos and the popularity of the same on smartphones and up-gradation of the 4G network. The study further added that “the number of 4G handset devices grew 1.5 times to reach 501 million units due to the availability of a range of feature-rich models at competitive prices”, reports The Hindu Business Line.
“We believe the migration of subscribers to 4G will continue to drive broadband growth in the country. The upcoming 4K/8K videos and industry 4.0 solutions that promise to enhance productivity and bring down expenses for industries across different verticals demand ultra high speed and extremely low latency. The Indian telcos will need to consider other connectivity solutions to leverage the new opportunities and to address the growing data consumption,” Sanjay Malik, Senior Vice President & Head of India Market at Nokia said, according to the newspaper.
India’s data traffic shot up by 44 times from 2015 to 2019 and broadband penetration is at 47 per cent.