Indian private telecom operators—Bharti Airtel, Reliance Jio, and Vodafone Idea (Vi)—have been offering generous amounts of data bundled with their plans. While Airtel and Jio have been offering complimentary unlimited 5G on their networks, Vi, on its part, has been offering Unlimited 4G, Free 4G, or generous amounts of 4G data bundled with its plans through various plan components all this while. Every operator reports the total data traffic on its network every quarter according to its own standards.
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Let's now look at the data traffic and usage parameters of the three telcos in the story ahead, based on the latest reports from each operator as of December 31, 2024.
Data Usage Trends and ARPU 
Bharti Airtel
Bharti Airtel reported an average mobile data consumption per customer per month of 24.5GB. This translates to roughly an average usage of 800MB per day, which is sufficient for serious smartphone users. Additionally, Airtel reported the industry's highest ARPU of Rs 245, which is close to its immediate short-term goal of Rs 300. Airtel reports its overall data volume on the network in million GBs, amounting to 20,174.
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Reliance Jio
Now, coming to the world's largest operator in terms of data traffic—Jio. The operator reported an average mobile data consumption of 32.3GB per customer per month. This means an average Jio user consumes slightly over 1GB of data per day. The company claims this as "Industry leading customer engagement." Jio reported an ARPU of Rs 203.3. Jio reports its overall data volume on the network in billion GBs, which stands at 46.5.
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Vodafone Idea
Next, we have the third private operator, Vodafone Idea (Vi), which offers high-speed data on its 4G network. We may soon hear announcements about its 5G rollout, starting with the Mumbai metro, as Nokia is accelerating its deployment, according to a recent announcement. Vi reported an average data usage of around 15.17GB (15,534MB) per 4G subscriber. This translates to slightly over 500MB per day per user on average. Vi's blended ARPU for the quarter stood at Rs 163. Vi reports its overall data volume on the network in billion MBs, amounting to 5,859.
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Conclusion
If we observe, the total data volume on the network is increasing for Airtel and Jio, whereas it has been in a downtrend for Vi over the last two quarters. Additionally, these data usage metrics are at their peak due to the availability of complimentary unlimited 5G and unlimited 4G from Vi in the market. While Vi and state-owned operator BSNL have yet to launch commercial 5G services, we can expect their usage numbers to rise once they do.
However, we do not anticipate any major surprises in usage statistics, especially as tariff corrections are being implemented in phases. Additionally, just yesterday, we discussed data consumption for video content, which helps in understanding the proportion of data spent on entertainment content versus actual internet usage.
