High-end devices drive 3G data usage, 4G gains traction:Report

With more and more people now using high-end devices, the average 3G data consumption per user in the country has soared to 753 MB, even as the booming 4G handset market is expected to further boost data traffic in 2016, says a Nokia MBiT study.
"We have seen about 85 per cent growth in 3G data consumption and India is now moving close to global average consumption per person. In India, it has reached to 753 MB data per month, while globally, it is in range of 800 MB to 1GB," Nokia Vice President and Head of India market, Sandeep Girotra said.

Consumption of 3G data across India peaked to 82 petabytes (PB) or 8.2 crore gigabyte per month at the end of 2015 compared to 44 PB a month at the end of 2014, as per the study. However, 2G mobile internet usage grew only by 12 per cent to 46 PB from 41 PB a month between 2015 and 2014.
"Appetite for data consumption is very huge in India. That is evident from the this study," Nokia, Head of technology for India, Amit Marwah said.
Nokia compiles MBiT study from data usage pattern recorded at network managed by it in India. Nokia says that it manages 2.3 lakh mobile sites in the country carrying traffic of about 28 crore mobile customers.

The study sees an eight-fold boom in mobile device ecosystem for 4G services that will set stage for data traffic growth in 2016.

"There are 47 million 4G enabled devices now active in market but only few of them have 4G connection," Marwah said.
3G devices penetration have grown by 140 per cent and subscribers by 69 per cent on year-on-year basis.
Around 38-42 per cent of mobile data is spent on video and audios service access by users, 18-22 per cent on social networking, 1-20 per cent on communication services and 20-24 per cent for other services.
Consumption of data usage patterns in India different from those in developed market where applications like video with high bandwidth consumption are used on wifi network but in India they are mostly accessed using mobile data, the study said.

Average users spend 20-25 minutes per day on messaging applications and 40 per cent of total time spent on them is for internet based applications.
"Around 43 per cent mobile internet users in India access Facebook at least once a month and 90 per cent Facebook users are on mobile," Marwah said.
Average usage of messaging application in India is in-line with global benchmarks of 18 minutes per day spent by average user on WhatsApp, the study said.