Total Number of Wireless Data Subscribers in India by Year

The above graph represents the total number of wireless data subscribers in India by year. As per the TRAI data received from the wireless access service providers, India’s wireless data subscribers count crossed the 500-million mark for the first time in 2018, with a yearly growth rate of 36.36%. The total wireless data users in India increased from nearly 424 million at the year ending 2017 to 578 million at the year ending 2018.

RegionIndia
SourceTRAI
Last Updated30 September 2019
Graph ID496
DurationCY 2014 – 2018

The total number of wireless or mobile data subscribers in India comprises the number of GSM (including LTE) and CDMA data subscribers.

Back then in 2014, there were only 281.58 million wireless data subscribers reported in the country, increased from 227.91 million data subscribers at the end of 2013.

Surprisingly, despite the phenomenal growth in the number of mobile data subscribers in India between 2014 and 2018, only 49.2% of the total mobile subscribers in India using their mobile data, rest 51% do not avail data services.

India’s Telecom Industry: Additional Information

India is currently the second-largest country in the world in terms of the number number of mobile subscribers and internet users. While the penetration of internet users in India is still moderate, mobile phone subscribers have almost hit the saturation point with 80% penetration.

The Telecom industry in India is going through consolidation after the debut of Reliance Jio. The government-backed BSNL is struggling and is almost on the verge of collapsing. On the other hand, in order to compete with Reliance Jio that has taken the industry by the storm with its future-ready network, all the top players have shaken hands.

Airtel and Tata Docomo merger paved the way for other companies struggling with declining ARPU and mobile subscriber base. Soon, Vodafone and Idea followed the footmarks and merged together to become the largest telecom provider in India. The celebration, however, was short-lived as Reliance Jio leapfrogged Vodafone Idea by the end of June 2019.

The telecom market in India is divided into three segments – wireless, wireline and internet services.


The above graph is a part of Dazeinfo GraphFarm – the most trusted source of hundreds of thousands of market graphs. Our team of researchers mines millions of data points every month to bring the most updated and validated set of data points representing the comprehensive view in a graphical format. From mobile to e-commerce, from Retail to healthcare, from startups to SMEs we have carefully designed thousands of graphs for those who value and understand the importance of data visualisation.