India likely to have 520 million 4G subscribers by 2022: Ericsson

The entry of Reliance Jio has led to intensified competition and has triggered data uptake and user additions. As per Ericsson Mobility Report, by 2022, India is likely to have 520 million 4G subscribers.

The report shows that 4G and 3G technologies are expected to represent 85 per cent of all Indian subscriptions by 2022, while 5G subscriptions will be available only in 2022, representing 0.2 per cent of total mobile subscriptions.

By 2022, the total subscriptions in the country would rise to 1.4 billion. In 2017, smartphone subscriptions in India are expected to represent 30 per cent of all mobile subscriptions but by 2022, it is expected to reach over 60 per cent. 

However, despite 4G growing at a fast pace and operators also investing the maximum on the technology, 3G is likely to hold its ground and by 2022, there will be 740 million 3G subscribers. But 2G and CDMA subscribers are likely to come down drastically to 211 million and 5 million respectively.

As per the report, the data traffic per smartphone user in India will grow to 11 GB per month by 2022 while the total mobile data traffic in India is expected to grow at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of around 40 per cent. This massive growth in data traffic is fueled by fast-paced smartphone adoption, changing user behavior and disruptive pricing strategies of operators. 

Increased distribution and consumption of video and multimedia services as well as the growth in mobile banking transactions and digital payments are also fueling the data traffic in the country. By 2022, 97 per cent of mobile data traffic will be smartphone traffic.    

The report said VoLTE (voice over LTE) subscriber base in India is pegged at 370 million by 2022. "VoLTE represents a great opportunity for telecom operators in India who are looking to route voice calls over 4G LTE networks enabling lower cost per minute for voice calls as well as free up legacy spectrum bands for re-farming," said Nitin Bansal, head of network products, Ericsson India.

Ericsson said the introduction of VoLTE will unleash a superior experience for users by enabling high quality voice and video calling as well as other rich communication services from their device's native dialer with no need of additional applications.