Despite the continuing price war by mobile operators in the country, India will see a significant growth of 12-fold increase on mobile data traffic in the next three years. Though China will remain at par with India, the United States will see its data growth up by only 6-fold by 2020, according to a top official of a global industry body GSMA.
“As per Cisco survey, India’’s mobile data traffic will see a significant rise of 12-fold from 2015 to 2020 with a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 63 per cent, while China will realise the same 12-fold increase by 2020 at 64 per cent of CAGR,” GSMA Asia Head Alasdair Grant told The Pioneer, at a sideline of an event while unveiling its new ‘’GSMA Intelligence’’ report here on Wednesday.
Comparing with the US market, Grant further said, “In the US, mobile data traffic will grow 6-fold from 2015 to 2020, a compound annual growth rate of only 42 per cent. In India, he said mobile data traffic will reach 1.7 Exabytes per month in 2020, up from 149 Petabytes per month in 2015, while China will reach 4.6 Exabytes per month in 2020, up from 385 Petabytes per month in 2015. “For the United States, the traffic will reach 2.9 Exabytes per month in 2020, up from 504 Petabytes per month in 2015,” he added.
As far as mobile smartphone market is concerned, India surpassed the US and remained world’’s second largest smartphone market till 2016, though China claimed to be on the top of the chart. As per survey done by the GSMA Intelligence study in world’’s top five smartphone markets - India, China, US, Indonesia and Brazil - in last five years, the report found that India’’s smartphone grew to 275 million in 2016 from 46 million in 2012. “China remained at the top slot with 910 million connections in 2016 from 231 million in 2012 and the US slipped to third position in 2016 with 259 million connections in 2016 from 165 million in 2012,” the report said.
As per the GSMA report, India is expected to have nearly 1-billion ‘’unique’’ mobile subscribers by 2020 up from 616 million such users in June 2016, projecting a spike in adoption of 4G services in the country in which the number of 4G connections would grow to 280 million by 2020 from just three million at the end of 2015.
Unique subscriber refers, the report said, to one individual who has subscribed to mobile service and that person may have multiple mobile connections. “India is expected to see a significant uptake in mobile subscriptions, broadband and connectivity by 2020, marking a period of rapid development of the country’’s mobile economy,” it said.
The GSMA report forecasts improving affordability, falling device prices, operator investments in network coverage and quality will help deliver an additional 330 million unique subscribers in India by 2020. This will lift the country’’s penetration rate to 68 per cent of the population by 2020, up from 47 per cent in 2015.
The report, however, said that the number of 3G and 4G mobile broadband connections is projected to cross 670 million by 2020, or 48 per cent of the total connection base. “In addition, the industry is set to invest heavily, with operator capex growing to $34 billion (Rs 2.3 lakh crore) for the period 2016 to 2020.
The Indian mobile industry’’s contribution to GDP is expected to grow to Rs 14 lakh crore ($210 billion) by 2020, from Rs 9 lakh crore ($140 billion) in 2015. The figure accounts for both the direct economic activity generated by mobile operators and the ecosystem of mobile industries in India.
“With this report, all signs point to a period of tremendous growth for India’’s mobile economy, which will strongly support and enable the Government’’s ‘’Digital India’’ initiative aimed at providing broadband connectivity to all,” said Mats Granryd, Director General, GSMA.