5G to drive 3x increase in monthly mobile data consumption in India by 2024: Nokia

The monthly average consumption of mobile data in India, which stood at 14.4 exabytes (EB) in 2022, is set to see a three-fold increase due to the influx of 5G connectivity, to reach 43.7EB by 2024. According to Finnish networking services firm Nokia’s MBiT Index report published on Thursday, India saw 70 million new 5G devices shipped through 2022, although 5G data consumption only started to take effect on overall data consumption on smartphones starting December last year. 5G device shipments, on this note, are expected to cross 100 million units by June this year, and surpass 4G device shipments by the end of this year.

The proliferation of 4G connectivity across India, driven by the advent of telecom operator Reliance Jio in 2016, has led to a steady growth in per-user monthly mobile data consumption. According to Nokia, while a smartphone user in India consumed an average of 9.7GB of data every month in 2018, this figure grew at a rate of 19% annually to 19.5GB last year. The overall mobile data traffic, as per Nokia, grew 3.2x in this period.

To be sure, 1000GB equals to 1TB, while 1000TB equals 1PB (petabyte). 1EB, which is the unit in which India’s monthly average mobile data consumption is calculated, equates to 1000PB, or 1 billion GB. India, therefore, consumed over 14 billion GB of mobile data every month last year.

According to Nokia, the consumption of 5G data is expected to commence in mass scale only by the second half of this year, thus contributing to a rise in the average consumption of mobile data among users every month. The company estimates India to have 990 million, or nearly 1 billion mobile data users by the end of 2024, of which over 15%, or around 150 million users, would be on 5G networks across the country.

India presently has around 730 million active 4G smartphones, out of which about 11%, or 85 million, are active 5G devices. This is expected to go up by 62% annually, owing to a higher quantum of 5G device shipments to the country this year.

To be sure, the commencement of rollout of 5G services in the country have not led to a windfall shift in buyers looking to upgrade their devices, as a result of which transition and shipment of new devices have remained tepid. On January 29, Mint reported that India’s smartphone shipment growth, which has typically been strong every year, is likely to remain muted in 2023. Phone shipments declined by around 9% last year, due to dwindling consumer demand and rising inventories rising from the lack of affordable smartphones to upgrade to.

Industry experts told Mint that 2023 is likely to not see a rush to upgrade to 5G devices, even as 5G smartphones are naturally expected to overtake 4G smartphone shipments in the country this year.