Nokia report: 134 million 5G devices in India, each user consumes 24.1 GB data on average

India’s data consumption is growing at a compounded annualised growth rate (CAGR) of 26% and the average user is consuming 24.1 GB of data every month, as per Nokia’s Broadband Index Report.

Nokia released the findings of its India-specific Mobile Broadband Index today. The report presents a deep dive into the data consumption trends, with the advent of 5G and the emergence of new technologies.

As per the report, Indian users consumed 17.1 exabytes of data monthly in 2023. For reference, 1 exabyte of data is equal to a million terabytes. The report claims that this spike in data consumption is in keeping with the secular uptrend in data consumption. The report cites a CAGR of 26% in data consumption over the past five years.

The 5G rollout that began in October 2022 has played a key role, per the report. According to Nokia, India now has 134 million 5G-enabled devices, which make for 17% of a total of 796 million 4G devices.

Nokia report claims that 5G users on average consume 3.6 times the data consumed by an average 4G user. Further, it claims that 5G data constitutes 15% of all data consumed in 2023.

Nokia report argues that enhanced 5G availability, coupled with the availability of a wide range of affordable devices, is fuelling 5G adoption. As per the report, this adoption is being led by metro cities, which have seen 5G data accounting for 20% of all data consumed.

The report further suggests that Fixed Wireless Access is also likely to be a key enabler for both individual users and enterprises. The report claims that FWA users consume 2.5 times the data consumed by 5G users.