Smartphone users are consuming 1GB of data a day: Report

According to a new report by Neilsen India, today users in India, are consuming 1GB of data a day on their smartphones which is a huge leap from an average of 4GB a month.

It said smartphone users are spending more than 90 minutes on online activities daily across the entry-level, mid-range and premium segments.

As far as the usage of apps goes, chat, video-streaming, browsers, social networking, and image apps are the most engaging and account for more than 50 percent of the total time spent on smartphones.

The report also pointed out that WhatsApp Messenger is the most engaging app across users of all three price bands. However, we do see differences when we look at the usage of some other popular apps.

Basic apps like Facebook Lite and UC Browser, that save space in comparison to full-service versions, are usually pre-installed in less expensive handsets to facilitate ease of operation.

The highest engagement occurs on apps that consume a lot of data, like Facebook, WhatsApp Messenger, Instagram, and Google Chrome, it said.

India has emerged among the most preferred smartphone markets in the world owing to affordable handset prices and low-cost data penetration, triggering a huge replacement demand among the customers across segments, the report added.

"The advent of the high-speed 4G Internet, less-expensive mobile handsets and a correction in call data charges have encouraged the speedy adoption of smartphones in India," said Abhijit Matkar, Director-Technology IPG - Nielsen India said.

The opportunity, new Chinese and Indian handset companies debuted models for less than Rs. 5000, offering an economical an alternative to models that range up to twice what these manufacturers are charging.

This sudden influx of affordable smartphones created a whole segment of new consumers who either upgraded from feature phones or were new mobile users altogether.