Indians consuming 36 GB mobile data each month
| Photo Credit: Special Arrangement
Each active smartphone user in India is consuming 36 GB data per month, highest globally, and is expected to reach up to 65 GB per month by 2031, noted Ericsson’s Mobility Report (EMR).
According to the report, India’s 5G subscriptions will reach 394 million by end of 2025, 32% of total mobile subscriptions, and expected to cross 1 billion by the end of 2031, reaching 79 percent subscription penetration.
Fixed Wireless Access (FWA) demand remains strong in India, with combined Jio and Airtel FWA connections reaching 12 million as of September 2025. Affordable 5G FWA devices and high data consumption among FWA users continue to accelerate India’s data traffic growth.
About 1.4 billion people expected to be served by FWA broadband by the end of 2031, 90 percent via 5G.
It forecasts 6.4 billion 5G subscriptions globally by the end of 2031, comprising two-thirds of all mobile subscriptions at the time. Nearly 4.1 billion of these subscriptions, about 65 percent, are forecast to be 5G SA.
In 2025 alone, 5G subscriptions are expected to top 2.9 billion by the end of the year, equating to about one third of all current mobile subscriptions, an increase of some 600 million subscriptions year-on-year.
Mobile network data traffic grew 20 percent between the third quarter of 2024 and the corresponding period in 2025, driven by mainland China and India.
5G networks are expected to manage 43 percent of all mobile data by the close of 2025, up from 34 percent for the corresponding period last year. EMR forecasts this to increase to 83 percent in 2031. Fixed Wireless Access (FWA) broadband continues to grow as a 5G use case.
EMR expects the first commercial 6G launch could happen in markets like U.S., Japan, South Korea, China, India, and some Gulf Cooperation Council countries. Global 6G subscriptions are forecast to reach 180 million by the end of 2031.
Commercial 6G is expected to launch about a year later in Europe, compared to other countries, than was the case for 5G, primarily due comparably later deployments of 5G SA.
Published – November 20, 2025 02:26 pm IST
