COVID-19 Restrictions Spur On Demand for Mobile Data, WiFi

India is going through a devastating COVID-19 second wave. Due to that, there is more and more dependence on mobile data and WiFi over the last few weeks.

COVID-19 Surging Demand for Data

Rajesh Chharia, President, Internet Service Providers' Association of India noted that “there has been a sharp increase in demand in FTTH by consumers".

He also stated that "as work from home is declared in most companies and families now depend on the internet more than ever".

There has been a 50-60% surge in broadband data consumption over the past two months, as per industry experts. Notably, there are 22 million wired, or fixed-line, broadband subscribers.

Bharti Airtel, Reliance Jio and state-run BSNL are the major providers.

The movement of migrant workers across states has also impacted data usage, as per a senior telecom executive. Cited by ETTelecom, they said that “metros like Delhi and Mumbai are seeing a data spike of about 10% but there is a 15% increase in data consumption in states like Rajasthan, Uttar Pradesh and Bihar, where a large chunk of the migrants come from”.

There have also been a drop in recharges at retail stores. That is because of increased curfews and lockdowns across many states and cities.

In terms of data consumption, Airtel leads the charts. As per a report by Emkay, its mobile data consumption is around 16.9 GB per user per month for the January-March quarter.

Interestingly, Reliance Jio and Vi see around 13.1 GB and 12.4 GB, respectively, for the same period. Analysts estimate a hike of around 10-15% in April-June.

Notably, in March-April last year, data usage increased by 30% in the wake of the national lockdown.