The TRAI report revealed the latest subscriber base on 4G, 3G and 2G networks in India in 2017.
India has 238.34 million 4G subscribers in 2017.
India’s 3G subscriber base with data connections touched 105.83 million last year. Demand for 3G is diminishing because of the wide availability of 4G internet access driven by Reliance Jio and rivals such as Bharti Airtel, Vodafone and Idea Cellular.
Reliance Jio with 160 million 4G connections is the dominant player in the Indian 4G market. The balance 78 million 4G subscriptions are shared among Vodafone, Idea Cellular and Airtel. TRAI report does not indicate about the number two operator in the hotly contested 4G space.
2G-powered internet user base touched 79.62 million in 2017.
Total Internet subscriber base was 445.96 million in December quarter of 2017, registering 3.90 percent growth from September quarter of 2017. India’s broadband Internet subscriber base grew 11.69 percent from 324.89 million at the end of Sep-17 to 362.87 million at the end of Dec-17.
Internet statistics
Narrowband subscribers 83.09 million
Broadband subscribers 362.87 million
Wired Internet subscribers 21.28 million
Wireless Internet subscribers 424.67 million
Urban Internet subscribers 313.92 million
Rural Internet subscribers 132.03 million
Internet penetration 34.42
Urban Internet penetration 76.76
Rural Internet penetration 14.89
TRAI report said the average data usage per subscriber per month on 2G, 3G and 4G network was 1,945 MB. Wireless data usage increased from 5,430,046 terabytes in Q3 2017 to 6,521,893 terabytes in Q4 2017.
2G data usage touched 108,953 terabytes, 3G data usage 1,088,774 terabyte and 4G data usage touched 5,318,122 terabytes. The contribution of 3G and 4G data usage in total data usage are about 16 percent and 82 percent respectively.