Indians Constantly Glued to Phone Screens

Indian smartphones right now are the biggest traffic hogs around the world, using up an average of 12 GB per month each in 2019, according to data by the Ericsson Mobility Report. This year, that is expected to increase by 1.3 GB to 13.3 GB, ahead of predictions for North America (10.7 GB in 2020) and Western Europe (11.7 GB in 2020).

Considering that less data-intense 2G connections are still prevalent in India and accounted for more than 40 percent of mobile subscriptions in 2019, this means the average Indian smartphone spends even more time in use opposite those in Europe and North America than indicated by the data.

Yet, the slower phase-out of 2G in India is also the reason for a predicted reversal in the trend of where the most data per smartphone is used. Because of the faster roll-back of older technologies and the faster roll-out of data-heavy 5G in North America and Europe, per-smartphone traffic in those regions is expected to surpass that of India from 2021 onwards.