Interesting facts on 4G in India in 2021: A look at how 4G grew in 2020
Internet consumption, especially 4G, has seen an all-time high lately due to the Coronavirus pandemic that drove us out of public spaces to homes and welcomed the virtual way of communication. Although it had happened a few years ago, the data usage surged drastically during the past year when couldn’t help but take the help of the internet for everything and anything.
This has been proven further by Nokia‘s recently released Mobile Broadband India Traffic Index (MBiT), which shows the latest 4G trends in India in 2020. The MBiT revealed that there has been a total data growth of 60 percent in India in five years. This growth is the highest globally. Let’s take a look at some more interesting facts on 4G in India.
4G trends in India in 2020
– It is revealed that data traffic grew by 36 percent in India in 2020. This can be accredited to a rise in 4G usage as more than 700 million people are now 4G subscribers in India.
– Around 100 million new 4G users were added in 2020, leading to the aforementioned subscriber count last year.
– It is also revealed that 4G data consumption has alone contributed to 99 percent of the total traffic in India. This shows how 4G has taken over with full force.
– Since 4G usage is on a rise, an average user consumed around 13.5GB of monthly 4G data in December 2020. This figure increased by 20 percent due to growth in subscribers and video consumption, which is mainly due to our increased dependency on the internet. The increased data usage also includes increased rural users.
Nokia MBiT 2021
Smartphones are now our go-to
– Coming to the device choice, smartphones became the primary source of entertainment as people spent an average time of 5 hours on their smartphones per day.
– Even the penetration of 4G in mobile phones has increased by 77 percent and we now have more than 607 million devices with 4G in India. VoLTE devices comprised 93 percent of the total LTE devices.
– Around 100 million LTE users are still on 4G but this could change soon as more people are expected to upgrade to 4G in India.
– Since the 4G smartphone is the new source of getting online content, here’s what we liked the most. It is revealed that the short-video format is the fastest-growing content type and expected to grow four times by 2025. This might prove fruitful the plethora of such apps now available in India.
– 4G has grown exponentially in the past few years but that doesn’t mean we aren’t waiting for the next-gen network. There already are around two million devices active 5G devices.
– Smartphones are expected to grow quite more with double-digit growth this year due to our usage of OTT platforms, social media, e-learning, and more sectors where smartphones and the internet are needed.
Fixed broadband will flourish too
4G isn’t the only focal point of the report. Details regarding fixed broadband in India suggest that there are 22 million fixed broadband subscribers and there is room for further growth in the segment.
It is also revealed that the fixed broadband growth will be possible through Fixed Wireless Access (FWA) and FTTH as India plans to soon introduce 5G in India.