5G Traffic Surges by 70%: Indians Are Now Consuming Average 31GB in a Month
Pan-India monthly 5G traffic reached 12.9 exabytes in 2025, contributing significantly to overall mobile data consumption.
India’s average monthly mobile data consumption per user has crossed 31GB, driven by a sharp surge in 5G usage, which grew by over 70 per cent year-on-year. According to the 13th edition of Nokia’s Mobile Broadband Index (MBiT) 2026, 5G now accounts for nearly 47 per cent of the country’s total mobile broadband traffic.
Pan-India monthly 5G traffic reached 12.9 exabytes in 2025, contributing significantly to overall mobile data consumption, which has crossed 27 exabytes per month. This growth has been supported by expanding 5G coverage and the increasing availability of affordable 5G smartphones.
Over the past five years, mobile data usage has grown at a compound annual rate of around 18 per cent, reflecting a shift towards data-intensive applications such as high-definition video streaming, cloud gaming, and AI-driven services.
Looking ahead, the report projects that India’s 5G subscriber base could cross 1 billion by 2031, reinforcing the country’s position as one of the leading global markets for 5G adoption and data consumption.
While metro cities continue to drive this growth, 5G adoption is accelerating across smaller circles as well. In metro regions, 5G already contributes around 58 per cent of total mobile data traffic, indicating a rapid transition from 4G to next-generation networks.
India’s device ecosystem is also aligning with this shift. Out of 892 million active 4G devices, over 383 million are already 5G-capable, and more than 90 per cent of smartphones shipped during the year support 5G. This growing hardware base is enabling wider deployment of multi-band networks and preparing the market for future demand.
The report also points to the early stages of an AI-led data surge, with emerging applications expected to increase demand for higher uplink speeds and lower latency, further shaping network evolution in the coming years.
Published By : Shubham Verma
Published On: 31 March 2026 at 16:48 IST