Mobile phone usage experience in India remained resilient during the second wave of COVID-19 lockdowns despite increased demand for mobile data than the first wave indicating preparedness by mobile operators to cope with increased data demand by users, said mobile analytics firm Opensignal.
It said as the government introduced strict lockdown measures in March 2020, a sharp increase in the average mobile data consumed was observed by smartphone users on a weekly basis — 26.8% to 30.1% higher than at the beginning of 2020.
The increased mobile data consumption lasted for six weeks between the last weeks of March-May 2020, before gradually decreasing towards pre-lockdown levels.
Concurrently, the users saw significant declines in their average download speeds — up to 24.8%. But in the last three weeks of April 2021, average data consumption had soared between 19.9% and 22.7%. However, this time, little change in the average download speed was experienced, it said.
“In this new insight, we have quantified our Indian smartphone users’ average mobile data consumption and compared it to their average download speed experience. Our analysis shows that the variation in mobile data consumption during the first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic in India inversely correlated with our users’ average download speed experience,” Opensignal said in the report.
“During the first lockdown in March 2020, we saw our Indian smartphone users’ average mobile data consumption increase drastically, along with significant drops in our users’ average Download Speed Experience,” it said.
“However, unlike the first lockdown, our users did not observe a substantial change in their overall download experience during the second wave of the COVID-19 pandemic starting March 2021 onwards. This highlights that the Indian mobile experience has been remarkably resilient during the second wave despite increased demand for mobile data,”it added.
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