Bernstein has claimed, in its internet usage in India study, that the majority of the data usage in India comes from Rural India contributing around 1,543.06 Mn while the Top 9 contributes only 556.13 Mn GB.  

Highest Contributing 

While rural India contributes the highest in the data usage across India, OTT tops the chart among the segments with around 707 Mn GB of data usage with the single most figure of 53% coming from Rural India, while the Top 9 contributing just 15%. 

Overall Best segment

Besides all the traffic coming from rural India, 86% of the internet users in India consume data for OTT usage, irrespective of their dwelling place, as they spend around 1.19 trillion hours on tier phones in the passing year.  

Popular Segments  - Rural India 

Besides the contribution from OTT, Communication, Social Media and Online gaming also make up the popular segments of data usage in rural India. In total, these make up 860.99 Mn GB of data usage in rural India as the per-capita data usage climbs 35-40 GBs per month. 

Popular Segment- Urban India 

Urban India, specifically the Small Metros and the Top 9, finds their best representation in Net Commerce, Digital Payments, and Online Learning segments where the Online Learning segment contributes the most. Consequently, the per-capita data usage in Tier-I goes to about 23.7 GB per month. 

Peak Volume Instances

 
Apart from all the segments and areas, the peak volume of data usage has been observed during sporting events like IPL. It can go anywhere from 50-60 GBs. 

5G Usage and Availability 

Following the launch of the 5G network in India in October 2022, 5G usage ranges from 22% in Bangalore to 44.8% in Howrah, West Bengal with Kolkata and Howrah surpassing the 40% mark in 5G availability. Cities with more than 35% availability of 5G network are Vadodara, Surat, Ahmedabad, Rajkot, Ranchi, Lucknow and Jodhpur. 

Indian Telcos 

These figures, conclusively, make Reliance Jio & Bharti Airtel the 6th and 7th most valued telecom companies in the world. With an average of 4.8 hrs per day, India ranks 6th in the world in time spent on phone apps in 2023. 

Prospects 

Increasing content consumption and gaming time will seriously affect the health of the users owing to high screen time and exposure to harmful lights. Such trends need to be addressed or else can have a detrimental impact on society, whether urban or rural. Besides, the popular segments also indicate an alarming trend where rural India is using the internet for mostly entertainment and connectivity while urban India prefers it for online learning and payments stuff which can consequently lead to an urban-rural divide exacerbating the literacy rates and awareness quotient.