India’s data usage per smartphone highest in world at 9.

8GB/month: Report

Live Mint: 19 Jun 2019 Navadha Pandey

India has the world’s highest data usage per smartphone at an average of 9.8GB per month, a new report by

Swedish telecom equipment maker Ericsson said, adding this will double to 18GB by 2024, fuelled by rich video

content.

“Improved device penetration, affordable data tariff plans, and increase in data-intensive content such as

videos are driving this growth in India," Nitin Bansal, head of Ericsson India and head of network solutions,

South East Asia, Oceania and India, said at the launch of The Ericsson Mobility Report on Wednesday.

Triggered by Reliance Jio’s entry in September 2016, India’s data consumption has exploded, with all other

operators also offering cheap data tariffs. Mobile data traffic is growing as more Indians spend time streaming

videos, which is expected to account for 75% of overall mobile traffic by 2024.

BBC NEWS 18 March 2019

Mobile data: Why India has the world's cheapest

India's plummeting data prices have hit a new low. In fact, according to a recent BBC report, the country has

the cheapest mobile broadband prices in the world. The BBC report, citing a UK-based price comparison site,

said that 1 gigabyte (GB) of mobile data cost $0.26 in India (£0.20), compared with $12.37 in the US, $6.66 in

the UK, and a global average of $8.53. But many Indian users said they were actually paying less than $0.10 a

GB. Customers in the US and UK too said they were paying less than what the survey reported. Whatever the

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true cost, what is clear is that mobile data in India is many times cheaper than elsewhere. But it might not last:

some said India's low prices were a transient phase as big operators fought for new customers.

India net neutrality rules could be world's strongest. Hands on with India's £3 smartphone

Reliance Jio, a young telecom operator that has shaken up the Indian market with cheap, high-speed mobile

data and free calls. Jio launched in September 2016 with an aggressive free trial offer, picking up 100 million

customers in just six months. The 4G-only high-speed data uses spectrum suited to data, for voice as well as

data. In just two years, Jio has become the third largest telecom operator in India, with 280 million subscribers

by December 2018. It gives away its 4G feature phone (which is not a smartphone), JioPhone, against a

refundable security deposit of $21, with plans starting below $1 a month. The handset runs two of India's most

popular apps, WhatsApp and Facebook, and supports WiFi.

India had more than 500m mobile broadband subscriptions at the end of December 2018, according to India's

telecom regulator TRAI, but just 18m wired broadband subscriptions. Of the 1.17bn mobile subscriptions in

the country, 55% of them are in urban areas. The big jump in broadband usage, all of it on mobiles, came

mostly from Jio.

The country's older telecom operators had to compete with Jio, slashing 4G data prices and throwing in

freebies. Kalipada in Delhi, considered moving to Jio, but his operator Airtel offered him a plan under $6 a

month for 40GB of data, with unused data rolled over to the next month, and free Amazon Prime video service

for a year. He decided to stay with Airtel. Clearly, Jio has driven data prices down sharply in India. Can the

market sustain these prices? Industry analysts say Jio is subsidising its service to get customers - and squeeze

out competitors. There were 10 telecom operators when Jio launched: now there are just four.

'Data prices will go up'

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Low tariffs are purely the result of hyper-competition resulting in a huge "consumer surplus" - when

consumers pay prices much lower than what they are willing to pay - according to Rajan Mathews, head of the

Cellular Operators Association of India.

"These low prices are not sustainable if operators have to continue to make investments in network coverage,

quality and new technology," Mr Mathews says. "Return on capital is in the low single digits for this industry.

Operators will need to review their pricing, to correct this situation."

Mukesh Ambani, chairman of Reliance Industries, however, has said that Jio's network has plenty of room for

growth, with only a fifth of its capacity utilized. "We can multiply our customer base without additional

investment," he said, speaking at the company's annual general meeting last July, when Jio had 215 million

customers. But data rates will go up, because this "hyper-competitive state of Indian telecom" is not

sustainable, argues digital rights activist Nikhil Pahwa, whose portal MediaNama tracks India's digital economy.

Telecom operator margins are now wafer thin and news reports of profits shrinking to near zero at telecom

companies which are feeling the pressure from Jio are common. "Before Jio's launch, there was virtually a

cartel in operation that kept prices high," Mr Pahwa says. "The lowering of rates has led to consolidation, and

we are down to four operators. It's a matter of time before rates go up. This was an industry used to 30%

margins, and it will want to get back there."

"Their disruption came from new tech," he says. "Jio bet on a frequency which was lying unused in abundance.

It combined voice and data - no one had thought of using voice in that spectrum band." And although nearly

100 million users were drawn in by Jio's prolonged free trial offer, Jio's customers are now spending more than

other operators' customers. Jio reports 30% higher than average revenue per user of almost $2.

And so the drivers, cooks, migrants, students, and many blue and white-collar workers watching and sharing

videos have driven up India's average mobile data consumption 10 times in two years, to more than 10GB per

user per month, roughly the same as in the USA.

They have very little access to free public WiFi, though Google and RailTel Corporation's RailWire project has

brought free, high-speed broadband over WiFi to over 400 railway stations. A pre-paid Jio connection is their

mainstay, often as a second SIM card in their phone, with free voice calls, and, for now, the cheapest mobile

data in the world.

Prasanto K Roy (@prasanto) is a technology analyst in Delhi

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MUMBAI—India’s richest man is catapulting hundreds of millions of poor people straight into the mobile

internet age.

WSJ: By Newley Purnell Sept. 5, 2018 11:05 a.m. ET

Mukesh Ambani, head of Reliance Industries one of India’s largest conglomerates, has shelled out $35 billion

of the company’s money to blanket the South Asian nation with its first all-4G network. By offering free calls

and data for pennies, the telecom latecomer has upended the industry, setting off a cheap internet tsunami

that is opening the market of 1.3 billion people to global tech and retailing titans.

The unknown factor: Can Reliance reap profits itself after unleashing a cutthroat price war? Analysts say the

company’s ultimate plan, after connecting the masses, is to use the platform to sell content, financial services

and advertising. It could also recoup its massive investment in the years to come by charging for high-speed

broadband to consumers’ homes and connections for various businesses, according to a person familiar with

the matter.

Mr. Ambani’s project has the potential to give India the largest—and most diverse—connected population in

the world, with low-cost access to data helping to level the playing field between rich and poor. It also could

revolutionize retail. Mr. Ambani’s success or failure could affect Alphabet Inc.’s

Google and Facebook Inc.’s WhatsApp, which have poured resources into developing products for the Indian

market, and Walmart Inc. and Amazon.com Inc., which have invested billions here on logistics for online

shoppers. To profit, they all need people connected to the internet.

Mr. Ambani wasn’t available to comment, according to a Reliance spokesman. The company “has unleashed

huge data potential in the country,” the spokesman said. “Digital life will no longer be the privilege of the

affluent few.”

There are 390 million internet users in India, according to Bain & Co., but the penetration rate is still only 28%,

compared with 88% in the U.S. The country’s e-commerce market is expected to be worth $33 billion this year,

three times what it was in 2015, but less than 3% of India’s overall retail market, according to research firm

eMarketer.