As per a report by Kotak Institutional Equities, the data traffic surge in India continued in quarter ended (QE) September 2019 with industry wireless data traffic increasing at 11 per cent quarter-on-quarter (QoQ) and 59 per cent year-on-year (YoY).
Among operators, Jio’s share of industry data traffic fell below 60 per cent for the first time since its launch.
The postpaid average revenue per user (ARPU) declined further while prepaid ARPU witnessed a slight increase.
Further, the report added that stable pricing and increasing share of revenues from bundled price plans meant that the QE September 2019 did not see the usual seasonal sequential dip in sector revenues despite decline in voice traffic.
As per the report, in the past 13 quarters industry voice traffic has gone up 2.1 times to nearly 10 trillion minutes. Aggregate data traffic in QE September 2019, stood at 20.3 billion GB, 43 times the 0.48 billion GB figure in QE June 2016.
The total data subscriber base has doubled during the period to 665 million while usage per at 10.6 GB per month now stands 21 times the June 2016 levels. LTE subscribers stood at 557 million including with 84 per cent of total subscribers comprising of Jiophone subscribers and 94 per cent of total data volume was carried on LTE networks in QE September 2019.
Further, 3G accounted for 5.7 per cent of total industry data volumes. Aggregate annualised consumer-level spends was Rs 1.45 trillion for the QE September 2019. Consumer-level spends stood at 0.73 per cent of GDP during the period.
Further, the report said that the industry size would be, hypothetically, 71 per cent higher than where it is if the brutal competition hadn’t eroded its share of the consumer wallet.
