Mobile Data Consumption to Grow Four-Fold by 2022: Crisil

Mobile data consumption in India has grown at a super fast 24 times in last five years, and is set to grow four-fold in the next five years through fiscal 2022, with data subscribers expected to double beyond 900 million and penetration reaching 80% from 40% at present, Crisil said in a report, adding that the faster penetration would be supported by a continued drop in tariffs given the intense fight for the all-crucial market leadership.

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Crisil said that telcos will have to increasingly sweat per-subscriber usage to bolster incremental revenues.

The agency added that India’s mobile data usage per subscriber nearly doubled to around 1.3 GB per month between fiscal 2013- 2017 on faster adoption of 3G and 4G services. The per subscriber usage will reach 2.3 GB per user by 2022, or closer to the trend in many evolved data markets, and stabilise thereafter.

It added that free data offered by Reliance Jio, and a sharp 40% fall in tariffs in fiscal 2017 were the growth propellants. Given the operators’ quest for market leadership, the decline in mobile data prices could continue in the medium term as well, but at a slower pace. “While not immediately but over the long run, data usage growth on mobile could stabilize for the operators, as Wi-Fi gains ground. A comparison of trends across countries indicates higher data usage is strongly linked to higher speeds, whereas India’s current mobile data speeds on 4G are less than half that of say South Korea,” Crisil said in a statement.