Parmita Uniyal
New Delhi: In what suggests growing penetration of over-the-top (OTT) platforms such as Netflix, Amazon Prime, Voot and Hungama Play, wireless data consumption has risen sharply over the last four years.
Besides data usage, the mobile subscriber base has also expanded across the country.
As per Economic Survey 2021 tabled in Parliament on Friday, the number of internet subscribers (both broadband and narrowband put together) stood at 776.45 million at the end of September-2020 as compared to 636.73 million in March-2019.
The wireless data usage grew at exponential rate during the calendar year 2019 and was at 76.47 Exa bytes. During January-September 2020, it had already reached 75.21 Exa bytes.
“Average wireless data consumption per subscriber per month increased from 9.1 GB in March-2019 to 12.2 GB in June-2020. The reduced cost of data could enable affordable internet access at a rapid pace,” the Survey said.
As on June 2020, the cost of wireless data was Rs 10.55 per GB. Data charges levied by telecom operators in India are considered lowest in the world.
“Internet and broadband penetrated both in urban and rural area at a rapid pace,” the Survey noted.