India to have around 15m 4G subscribers by 2015: PwC

Tribune News Service

New Delhi, December 19

India is expected to have 10-15 million 4G LTE subscribers next year, driven by competitive pricing, superior network experience and affordable smartphones.

As PwC India today shared top trends and wishlist for Indian telecom industry in 2015, it said next year will witness multiple Indian players launching 4G on a more efficient 1,800 MHz spectrum and subscribers will adopt 4G whole-heartedly to satiate their need for mobile data.

Mukesh Ambani-promoted Reliance Jio Infocomm is gearing up to launch its 4G services on both TD-LTE and FD-LTE technologies early next year.

“We expect 4G LTE subscribers to reach 10-15 million by December 2015 driven by competitive pricing, superior network experience and affordable smartphones,” said Arpita Pal Agrawal, leader — Telecom, PwC India.

Bharti Airtel is slowly expanding its 4G presence in select cities using TD-LTE technology. Airtel is also likely to launch 4G on FD-LTE next year.

Currently, Airtel and Malaysia’s Maxis-joint venture Aircel have limited 4G presence. Though Aircel has announced the launch of 4G services, its website does not have any tariff details or other related data.

Yesterday, Uninor, a subsidiary of Telenor, said it would start trials on narrow-band LTE due to limited availability of spectrum.

The report said Public Wi-Fi will become a reality. India will see a significant spurt in Wi-Fi hotspots driven by both Government “Smart Cities” and “Digital India” and private sector initiatives.

In the wearable space, Indian consumers have shown most interest in buying fitness monitors (80%), smart watches (76%) and internet-enabled eyeglasses (74%).

In this sector, the price points are expected to go down with Chinese and local manufacturing increasing and the increasing penetration of smartphones and their ability to carry confidential subscriber data will be a significant driver for traction in security applications for smartphones.

Given the steadily increasing divergence between data revenues and cost, a trend that will likely sharpen in 2015 is that the mobile companies will start looking at unconventional monetisation options.