The Internet Trends 2017 report by Mary Meeker, partner, Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, a Silicon Valley venture capital firm, throws a lot of interesting insights on India’s smartphone and Internet usage. Here are some of the key findings.

Time spent on mobile: Eighty per cent of all Internet usage in India is done through mobiles. Indians spend 28 hours per week on mobile. Compared to this they spend just four hours watching TV and two hours reading print.

Price of data: Indians consumed about 1.3 billion GB of wireless data in March 2017, compared to 200 million GB in June 2016. This is largely the impact of the launch of Reliance Jio which offered free data till December 2016 and thus led to other operators slashing data prices. The annualised cost of 1 GB/ month data has come down from $51 in Q1 2015 to $23 in Q1 2017. This means that the price for 1 GB data per month have approximately come down from Rs 276 to Rs 124 in the same period.

Digital payments: Digital payments have picked up and received a further boost due to demonetisation. The number of Paytm users has more than doubled to 215 million in March 2017 compared to 122 million in April 2016. Monthly digital payment volumes through UPI in India have gone up drastically from 0 in August 2016 to $106 million in December 2016 and $359 million in March 2017. eKYC verifications have also gone up substantially in the last few months.

Lower prices: Smartphones and Internet access and use of technology have also changed how Indians access learning, groceries and healthcare. In fact, access to online healthcare have made healthcare affordable by lowering prices of lab tests by 40-50 per cent and instant price comparisons mean users have saved 20-30 per cent on prescriptions. In groceries, online distribution has meant 20-25 per cent lower prices for consumers.

anaghpal@outlookindia.com