Data tariff not cheap, scope for 75% cut: Study

New Delhi, August 31

If you thought data tariff in India offered by telecom service providers was cheap, a top global consulting firm focused on digital media not only says it is pretty steep even by developed nations' standards, but also calls for a 75% cut to push usage.

"India's current data tariff (based on current average revenue per GB of Rs 228) is significantly higher than that of relevant developed and developing countries, when adjusted for the per-capita incomes to normalise for affordability levels," says Analysys Mason.

"India's data tariffs (price of 1GB pack) as percentage of GNI (gross national income) per capita is currently 2.6% — whereas, on an average, the developed economies' data tariff, as a percentage of GNI per capita, currently stands at 0.4-0.5%," it adds.

In other words, an average user of data in India spends 2.6% of her/his annual income to consume 1GB of data per month — which is way higher than the average of 0.2-0.4% of the annual income that is spent by their counterparts in developed markets.

"Our analysis concludes that a 75% cut in data tariffs (average revenue per GB of Rs 57) alone could increase the user base to 645-667 million SIMs, and the level of monthly data usage to around 4.2-4.3 GB per SIM in 2019-20," the Analysys Mason study says, in the given scenario. ians