Mobile broadband user base in India is expected to grow fourfold and hit 500 million by 202o, as per latest report from Ericsson. Along with the rising broadband usage, smartphone penetration in the country will hit 45% or 520 million devices up from 10% or 90 million devices in 2013.
“Ubiquitous mobile broadband experience for users is a challenge at present, with only a third being able to access internet over a mobile broadband network every time they attempt. “Consumers’ value broadband and their expectations around experience are evolving fast,”said the report.
Giving insights about mobile subscribers, Ericsson estimated that India’s mobile subscriber base will grow from 795 million in 2013 to 1145 million subscribers by 2020. In 2013, the average data usage stood at 155 MB per month, which is expected to reach 390 MB per month per user by 2017 and by 2020 this no will touch 620 MB a month.
“We also expect to see 3G SIMs to grow from 70 million SIMs today to 400 million SIMs by 2020, and 4G SIMS should number 100 million in the same period.”
said Ajay Gupta, Head of Strategy & Marketing, Ericsson India
The report touted that over one-third of all mobile broadband data traffic is driven by social media (15%), browsing(11%) and chat (7%) and video (4%). Ericsson suggests that Operators looking to effectively monetize broadband services and tap future growth opportunities need to significantly invest in scaling network performance in three areas – ensuring network ubiquity, consistent app coverage and new charging models based ‘personalization’ that address consumer’s specific preferences.