The overall industry mobile data consumption grew by 50% in year 2015, with 3G data growing at 85% & 2G data at 12%. With 43% growth in data consumption, Videocon Telecom registered more than 3.5 times the industry 2G growth. The telco also reported an impressive 21% growth in average monthly data consumption per user, while as per the Nokia MBit index 2016, the industry grew by approx 11% only.
With the introduction of 4G, mid-range Smart devices penetration and pressure on propagation and uptake of 3G services in both the urban and rural centres, has outpaced the 2G data growth for the Telcos. The 43% growth in 2G Data witnessed by Videocon could be attributed to the company upgrading its Network to a 2.75G EDGE Network aiming at superior customer experience, the company has also overhauled its product, pricing and customer segmentation strategy.
According to the Arvind Bali, Director & CEO, Videocon Telecom, the company still believes that there is still potential left in the 2G business and Videocon is extremely well positioned for it competing with the 3G players post the up-gradation to 2.75G EDGE. Even last year, the company’s data growth was almost 3 times the industry growth at 126% against 42% that of the industry.
The Nokia Mbit statistics also suggests a 12% growth in monthly average data consumption per user on 2G to reach 220MB per user, while the monthly average data consumption per user on 3G witnessed 11% growth to reach 753 MB/user during the year. Based on the information shared by the company, Videocon Telecom reached an average 2G data consumption per user per month to 239MB data/user/month, almost double the industry 2G growth mentioned in the report.
According to the study, 3G device penetration more than doubled during the year, with the new network launches and expansions in existing circles boosted data adoption beyond larger towns and cities.
With the subscriber appetite, growing for multimedia services, with video and social networking now making up 60% of data traffic adding to it the evolving device penetration and competitive prices, sustaining such data growth on 2G will be a major challenge for the company.
