New Delhi: about 300 million people, or one-third mobile phone users According to CRISIL ratings, India is expected to use 5G services by March 2025, while the remaining two-thirds will continue to use 4G technology. Currently, 20-25 million people in India are estimated to be using 5G services.
Growth in 5G adoption is expected to increase average internet data usage per subscriber per month to 28-30 gigabytes (GB) by fiscal year 2025, from around 20 GB currently, driving adoption of over-the-top streaming services. Inspired by online gaming.
CRISIL Ratings Director Naveen Vaidyanathan said in a statement on Wednesday: “Currently, about 30-35 per cent of the approximately 150-170 million smartphones shipped annually in India are 5G-enabled. While the share of 5G smartphone shipments will gradually improve, the (yet) low initial value proposition and higher cost of 4G-phones versus gadgets will restrict total 5G adoption to around 300 million users by fiscal year 2025. In other words, it would mean that by FY2025, only one-third of data users in the country would be connected to 5G services.
The research agency pointed out that telcos are on a spree of 5G roll-out across India, having already rolled out service in over 300 cities by October 2022. However, the pace of mass adoption will only pick up when more 5G use-cases emerge for consumers.
Despite the identification of a plethora of 5G use cases such as smart classrooms, precision farming and intelligent transportation systems, large-scale adoption of the technology hinges on significant improvements in network infrastructure, which are expected to happen gradually over the next few years . ,
Till then, CRISIL Ratings said, adoption of 5G services will be largely driven by technology-neutral tariffs offered by telcos.
It added that the penetration of the 5G device ecosystem among users will also be critical to the adoption of 5G services.
Additionally, customers of 5G services will see a boost in data consumption as they upgrade to higher data packs for better speeds, which will increase the aggregate average revenue per user (ARPU) for telcos.
“India is already one of the largest data consuming countries. Raunak Agarwal, team leader at CRISIL Ratings, said 5G could accelerate the adoption of over-the-top streaming services and online gaming, which will further drive data demand.
“As a result, the average data usage per customer per month is expected to increase to around 28-30 GB by FY2025 from around 20 GB at present. We see an increase in subscriber base due to higher data demand, increasing share of post-paid subscriptions and tariff revisions boosting ARPU to around Rs 250 in the medium term.
(Editing by Nida Fatima Siddiqui)
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