Will telecoms invest more to meet Facebook-driven data traffic

Jio 4G Wi-Fi
Strategy Analytics has revealed a report on the top Indian mobile publishers which also consume data traffic on your smartphones and other devices.

The report is giving indication for telecom network operators such as Bharti Airtel, Vodafone, Idea Cellular, BSNL and Reliance Jio to plan their mobile networks and monetization strategies from mobile Internet.

Social media network Facebook is the top mobile publisher in India capturing one-third of the total time spent on Android smartphones, said Strategy Analytics.

Strategy Analytics says Indian mobile users spend 144 minutes per day on various apps.

The report analyzed the performance of Facebook and Google’s mobile properties – the top two publishers in India.
India mobile app publishers
Facebook and Google properties combined account for 31 percent of overall mobile sessions, 43 percent of overall time spent by device owners, and 28 percent of the total application data traffic in India.

The recent Cisco VNI report says the IP traffic in India will grow 4-fold in 2020, with video being the main trigger and almost 69 percent of all networked devices will be mobile-connected in 2020. In India, smartphones will account for 37 percent (702.1 million) of all networked devices in 2020, compared to 18 percent (239.4 million) in 2015.

The Cisco VNI report indicates that average mobile connection speed will grow 3-fold from 2015 to 2020, reaching 3 Mbps in 2020. This means, telecoms will be spending more on mobile infrastructure to beef up broadband speed. Increase in broadband speed will prompt telecom users to consume more data.

Strategy Analytics said Facebook properties alone account for 32 percent of the total time spent on mobile devices, with WhatsApp, generating 73 percent of the total time and 79 percent of the session share across all its properties.

For Google, the standout properties are Google Now and YouTube. Google Now already accounts for more than a third of the total sessions among Google Properties.

Bonny Joy, chief, Consumer Telemetry Platforms at Strategy Analytics said:  “Messaging is the most important channel for mobile engagement. Indian mobile users engage with various messaging apps 34 times per day, which is more than twice the frequency of a US mobile user.”

The following inputs from Cisco VNI report on India demands additional investment in telecom networks especially on mobile Internet infrastructure.

The average Internet user will generate 6.1 gigabytes (+21 percent) per month in 2015.

Internet traffic will grow 4.4-fold from 2015 to 2020, a compound annual growth of 34 percent.

Busy hour Internet traffic will grow 7.2-fold from 2015 to 2020, a compound annual growth rate of 48 percent.

Internet traffic will reach 4.1 Exabytes per month in 2020, up from 946 Petabytes per month in 2015.

In India, mobile data traffic will grow 12-fold from 2015 to 2020, a compound annual growth of 63 percent. Mobile data traffic will reach 1. 7 Exabytes per month in 2020, up from 149 Petabytes per month in 2015.

Baburajan K
[email protected]