India to have over 800 million smartphone users by 2022: Cisco study

By 2022, smartphones will account for 44% of total Internet traffic, up from 18% in 2017.

In 2018, PCs accounted for 41% of total IP traffic, but by 2022 PCs will account for only 19% of IP traffic (Getty Images)

The number of smartphone users is expected to double to 829 million by 2022 from 404.1 million in 2017, projects a new Cisco report.

This proliferation of smart devices will propel India's per capita data consumption to nearly 14 gigabytes (GB) by 2022 from 2.4 GB in 2017, according to Cisco's latest "Visual Networking Index (VNI)" report.

"By 2022, the smartphone data consumption will increase by five time in India -- which proves the dominance of smartphones as the communications hub for social media, video consumption, communications, and business applications, as well as traditional voice," Sanjay Kaul, President, Asia-Pacific and Japan, Service Provider Business, Cisco, said in a statement on Monday.

The Internet is made up of thousands of public and private networks around the world. And since it came to life in 1984, more than 4.7 zettabytes of IP traffic have flowed across it.

One zettabyte is approximately equal to a thousand exabytes, a billion terabytes, or a trillion gigabytes.

In India alone, IP networks carried 108 petabytes of data per day in 2017 and are expected to reach 646 petabytes per day by 2022.

This is primarily driven by the growth in the number of smartphone users, said the report.

In 2018, PCs accounted for 41% of total IP traffic, but by 2022 PCs will account for only 19% of IP traffic, the research showed.

Saying that more traffic will be created in 2022 than in the 32 years since the Internet started, the report added that India will be a major driver of this with the total number of Internet users reaching 840 million (60% of the population) by 2022 from 357 million (27 per cent of the population) in 2017.

Average traffic per capita per month to increase from 2.4GB to 13.9GB (Cisco)

Average traffic per capita per month to increase from 2.4GB to 13.9GB (Cisco)

Key predictions for 2022 (India)

· In India, there will be 840 million total Internet users (60% of the population) by 2022, up from 357 million (27% of the population) in 2017.

· In India, there will be 2.2 billion networked devices by 2022, up from 1.6 billion in 2017.

· In India, Smartphones will account for 38% (829.0 million) of all networked devices by 2022, compared to 26% (404.1 million) in 2017, (15.5% CAGR).

· In India, Smartphones will average 17.5 GB per month, up from 3.5 GB in 2017.

· India's IP traffic grew 53% in 2017 and reached 3.3 Exabytes per month in 2017, up from 2.1 Exabytes per month in 2016.

· In India, IP traffic reached 2.4 Gigabytes per capita in 2017, up from 1.6 Gigabytes per capita in 2016. Per capita Consumption will reach 13.9 GB by 2022.

· In India, the average fixed broadband speed grew 44% from 2016 to 2017, from 6.6 Mbps to 9.5 Mbps.

· In India, 28% of broadband connections will be faster than 10 Mbps in 2017.

· In India, Internet video traffic grew 73% in 2017 and reach 13.5 Exabytes per month by 2022, up from 1.5 Exabytes per month in 2017. This account for 77% of all Internet traffic by 2022, up from 58% in 2017.

· In India, there will be 1.2 billion IPv6-capable fixed and mobile devices by 2022, up from 351.3 million in 2017, a CAGR of 28%.

· In India, total public Wi-Fi hotspots (including homespots) will grow 116-fold from 2017 to 2022 from 51.5 thousand in 2017 to 6.0 million by 2022.

(With inputs from Cisco report)