Smartapp, India’s leading mobile analysis app, provides trend & insights driving Digital India.

 There is a paradigm shift in mobile data consumption patterns across consumer segments in the last few months. With leading telecom players offering incredible data plans, India has witnessed a massive increase in data consumption in metro cities, as well as in non-metro regions reveals a Smartapp user data study.

Significant reduction on data cost in last few months

In the age of the dual-sim, Smartapp reveals that Jio has become the primary data connection on mobile devices. Jio has captured the SIM 1 slot of smartphones as these are generally 4G compatible. Approximately 42% users have activated Jio in their 4G-enabled slot, followed by Airtel at 17.54%, Vodafone at 12.26%, and Idea at 11.50%.

Jio’s free data offers seems to have influenced users to consume data-heavy content like video & music that were traditionally considered too expensive to stream on the go. Incumbent leaders such as Airtel and Vodaphone have also joined the fray and are offering incredible packages that seemed unbelievable since its launch.

Free data creates run-away consumption.

Smartapp's study further reveals that Jio is leading not just in data connections but in data consumption as well. With data usage by a Jio user logging a whopping 6.54 GB on average, compared to 1.28 GB on Airtel, 1.29 GB on Vodaphone and 1.32 GB on Idea. This is due to their "welcome offer" that offered unlimited data to its subscribers till March 31, 2017.

Social apps and Video usage driving mobile internet adoption

The use of social networking platforms such as Facebook and video streaming apps like Youtube are the primary drivers of usage and large-scale adoption of mobile internet across India reveals the Smartapp study.

Social apps have witnessed the highest increase in usage with a massive 467% boost. While, video streaming apps are second at 336% increase. However, the actual data required for video apps is higher. Thus, the free data offer from Jio has benefited apps in this category.

Content consumption across News (+212%), Music (+207%) and Sports (+176%) has also seen manifold increase since its launch.

The Dawn of Digital India

Speaking on these findings Gaurav Sarin, Chief Operating Officer, smartapp says, “Digital India has become a reality. This recent trend of mobile internet adoption and consumption, revealed by Smartapp, is probably the harbinger of how 'Mobile First' will drive Digital India and bring about true digital inclusivity and access across India."

"We at Smartapp, are really excited about this trend and want to keep innovating towards enriching Indian users’ experience around smartphone usage," adds Sarin.

With limited wifi and terrestrial broadband infrastructure, mobile broadband is the first, and probably the only way that most Indians will be able to access the internet.  Lowered costs being the driving factor, mobile data consumption in metros has increased by almost 6 GB and non-metro by almost 5 GB over the last few months. Truly, Digital India has arrived.