Low cost devices and data plans to fuel data explosion in Indian telecom market

Telecom Lead India: In 2012, data consumption in Indian
telecommunications market would go up substantially aided by competition,
technological advancement and reduction in per gigabyte prices, according to
Deloitte.

 

In its predictions for 2012, Deloitte said that there are
several factors that will push the data usage to extraordinary levels, which
includes a steady increase in the number and type of mobile devices such as
smartphones, tablets, eReaders and high capacity dongles.

 

Smartphones sale in India shows three digit growth rate
and also wireless broadband traffic is growing exponentially with proliferation
of a new and powerful generation of mobile and multimedia handheld devices with
several competing operating systems.

 

The firm said that opportunity to connect more devices is
boosting the number of subscribers and devices connected to internet.

 

The availability of 3G services in all likelihood will
become more widespread in 2012, covering most of the tier 2 and 3 cities, and
possibly, 4G services would see the light of day at affordable prices in 2012.

 

With such advancements in the network technology, data
consumption will further increase.


However, Deloitte also noted that the falling prices of
mobile devices like smartphones, tablets, etc., and rapid launch of low cost
devices will also help in increasing data usage.

 

Smartphone and tablet prices are reducing due to
increasing competition in the low cost device space and launch of 3G services.
The modern age smartphones with attractive features at affordable prices have
grabbed the attention of the young generation.

 

This is increasing the opportunity for youth and upper
middle class users to use interactive applications like BB messenger, GTalk,
Skype, etc., and social networking applications like Facebook, Twitter,
LinkedIn, and others, beyond video and voice.

 

The growing demand on mobile devices for bandwidth rich
applications such as HDTV, video-on demand, video-telephony, and gaming will
also play its part in increasing data consumption.

 

Although, the soaring need of upwardly mobile citizens to
be always online and access data on the move will farther up the consumption.

 

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