INDIAN TELECOM INDUSTRY AT A GLANCE IN 2019- 2020 India holds the world’s highest data usage per smartphone at an average of 9.8 GB per month as of year 2019. It is expected to double to 18 GB by 2024. India is currently the world’s second-largest telecommunications market with a subscriber base of 1.20 billion and has registered strong growth in the past decade and half. The Indian mobile economy is growing rapidly and will contribute substantially to India’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP), according to report prepared by GSM Association (GSMA) in collaboration with the Boston Consulting Group (BCG).
As of January 2019, India has witnessed a 165 per cent growth in App downloads in the past two years. India ranks as the world’s second largest market in terms of total internet users. The number of internet subscribers in the country increased at a CAGR of 45.74 per cent during FY06-FY19 to reach 636.73 million in 2019. The internet subscribers reached 687.62 million till September 2019. Total wireless data usage in India grew 10.58 per cent year-on-year to 19,838,886 terabytes between July-September 2019.
India is also the world’s second largest telecommunications market, total telephone subscriber base and tele-density reached 1,172.44 million and 88.56 per cent, respectively, as on December 2019. Gross revenue of the telecom sector stood at Rs 121,527 crore (US$ 17.39 billion) in FY20 (April-September 2019).
Investments
FDI inflows into the telecom sector during April 2000 – December 2019 totalled to US$ 37.11 billion, according to the data released by Department for Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade (DPIIT).
Industry Forecast
Revenues from the telecom equipment sector are expected to grow to US$ 26.38 billion by 2020. The number of internet subscribers in the country is expected to double by 2021 to 829 million and overall IP traffic is expected to grow 4-fold at a CAGR of 30 per cent by 2021.
The National Digital Communications Policy 2018 has envisaged attracting investments worth US$ 100 billion in the telecommunications sector by 2022. The Indian Mobile Value-Added Services (MVAS) industry is expected to grow at a CAGR of 18.3 per cent during the forecast period 2015–2020 and reach US$ 23.8 billion by 2020.
