COUNTRY DATA: INDIA

COUNTRY DATA: INDIA

HEADLINES
▪ 519 million Indian people are internet users in 2019, 43% of the country’s entire population
▪ In 2019, 94% of India’s internet subscribers are mobile internet subscribers
▪ Digital infrastructure development remains the major driver of growth in India’s digital
landscape
▪ By 2031, 1.1 billion Indian people are expected to be internet users, 82% of the country’s
projected population

PROSPECTS

India’s Digital Landscape Benefits From Major Infrastructure

Development
Towards the end of the review period, India’s digital landscape experienced strong growth
and development. Among the major reasons for this are the major improvements being seen in
internet connectivity as the country’s telecommunications infrastructure is constantly being
developed and redeveloped. Indeed, improving the country’s internet connections and
communications infrastructure remains a key aspect of the Digital India initiative. This is a
government infrastructure development programme that aims to provide internet access to
every household and fixed line broadband to 50% of households throughout the country by
2020. This is likely to widen access to the internet to hundreds of millions of Indian consumers,
fuelling very strong growth in the country’s digital landscape over the forecast period.

Smart City 2.0 Mission Set To Spur Further Development in the Digital
Landscape
The forecast period is expected to see India’s digital landscape continue to develop at a rapid
pace under the auspices of the Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs’ Smart City 2.0 Mission.
This is an initiative that promises to develop “smart city” infrastructure in major urban areas and
it is currently being rolled out across the entire country after successful pilot schemes earlier in
the review period. Private funding sources are currently being sourced, including pool finance,
bonds, monetisation of unused land and foreign capital, with incentive mechanisms on offer to
organisations willing to become involved in public-private partnerships.
With the first stage of the Smart City Mission having already been rolled out in phases across
100 cities, Smart City 2.0 Mission is slated to cover all of India’s 4,000 cities. In addition to
furthering the Government’s aim of turning all of India’s major urban areas into smart cities, the
Mission is expected to bring major improvements to housing and infrastructure, with the
development of open spaces a major priority. Nevertheless, the Smart City Mission has already
faced multiple challenges such as difficulty securing long-term funding and limits on its capacity
building potential. At the time of writing, only 10% of planned projects had been completed
during the first three years of the Mission, raising questions as to how viable the Mission’s goals
are.
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the Proliferation of Smartphones Pushes Digital Landscape

Development
Recent years have seen very strong growth in demand for smartphones in India and there
was no slowdown evident in 2019. Much of this can be attributed to the increasingly widespread
availability of affordable handsets from Chinese brands such as Xioami, Vivo, Oppo and
Realme, which combined now dominate sales of smartphones in India, with Xiaomi the outright
leader. Samsung remains a strong player in the category, registering strong growth due to the
popularity of its mid-priced handsets such as the recently launched Galaxy A series. Apple Inc is
now the leader in the premium segment due to the relative affordability of its iPhone XR
handset, which was recently subject to price reductions. The democratisation of smartphone
ownership is likely to prove extremely favourable for India’s digital landscape over the forecast
period as a much wider user base will have access to the internet at more affordable prices. It
also means that mobile devices will become even more popular and more dominant in the
country’s digital landscape.

COMPETITIVE LANDSCAPE

the Launch of Reliance Jio Significantly Expands Internet Usage

Recent reports have stated that India now has the world’s second-largest internet user base
after China. According to industry analysts, this is largely the result of the recent launch of
Reliance Jio and its national LTE network, which has made highspeed mobile internet affordable
to a far wider pool of Indian consumers. This, combined with the proliferation of low-cost
smartphones has encouraged huge numbers of Indian people to access the internet more often.
Indeed, reports in the trade press indicate that Jio’s cheap data plans were a major factor in
mobile internet data usage in India doubling over the course of 2019. Among the most popular
uses of mobile internet in India are streaming services, social media platforms and e-commerce
websites.

the Era of Heavy Tariff Discounting Set To Come To An End

Throughout the review period, India’s leading mobile telecommunications companies were
engaged in a price war. This led to several years of heavy price discounting on mobile phone
accounts and mobile data services. However, 2019 brought an end to this situation as the
industry’s leading players sought to improve both their top lines and bottom lines, with Jio,
Vodafone and Idea, among others hiking tariffs for calls as well as mobile internet usage.
Nevertheless, it was still far cheaper to use a mobile device to access the internet at the end of
the review period than at the start and this has introduced the digital landscape to huge
numbers of Indian consumers who were previously excluded from the digital realm due to the
high cost of being connected.

the Rollout of India’s 5g Mobile Network To Revolutionise the Digital

Landscape
The testing of India’s 5G mobile telecommunications network is beginning to take shape and
at the time of writing active trials were well underway. The rollout of 5G in India has been led by
Huawei, in partnership with Jio, Airtel and Vodafone, with testing conducted in Delhi and
Bengaluru. However, the government has yet to allocate the trial spectrum to the potential
licensees, a group which comprises the country’s leading mobile telecommunications providers.
5G wireless technology promises to confer huge benefits on India’s mobile internet users by
COUNTRY DATA: INDIA

improving data speeds and reliability. In addition, 5G is set to be the basis of the internet of
things, which has the potential to bring radical changes in areas as diverse as agriculture,
manufacturing, healthcare and education. Nevertheless, India’s 5G testing and rollout
programme is already well behind most other countries and it is unlikely that the system will be
up and running before the end of 2020.
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