Telecom equipment supplier Nokia has revealed MBiT Report 2018, India’s mobile broadband growth and its changing landscape, at a press conference in Delhi.

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Sanjay Malik, head of India Market, Nokia and Amit Marwah, head, Customer Marketing and Communication, Nokia India, are present at the event.

Mobile broadband India 2017 highlights

# 4G contributed 82% data traffic growth
# 4G data grew 135%
# 3G data grew 286%
# Video contributed 65-75%
# Data use on mobile and Wi-Fi reached 8.8 GB
# LTE capable devices touched 218 million
# 74% supports VoLTE
# 5G is expected in 2020 MBiT Report 2018 focuses on growth trends in 3G and 4G networks, subscribers, data consumption, among others.

The report said 4G contributed 82 percent of India’s data market in 2017. Main operators in India are Bharti Airtel, Idea Cellular, Vodafone and Reliance Jio.

Nokia said the commercial launch of 5G — targeting IoT / M2M market — is expected in India by 2020. Some of the global telecom operator such as AT&T, T-Mobile, Verizon, China Mobile, SK Telecom, Orange, among others, are gearing up for 5G launch in 2018-2019.

Nokia MBiT Index said 82 percent of Indian mobile data traffic came from 4G subscribers in 2017. The report did not reveal the number of 4G subscribers in the country. Reliance Jio is the country’s largest 4G operator with 160 million plus subscribers.

Nokia said overall India data traffic grew 144 percent last year. 4G usage reached 11 GB per user per month on average. Video consumption contributed up to 65 percent of total mobile data traffic.

Nokia, which aims for telecom deals in 5G equipment market, predicts that the data demand is expected to be key driver of 5G networks in India.

Damini Juyal