Exclusive: India's average data usage to rise up to 50GB per month by 2027, says Nunzio Mirtillo of Ericsson

Prime Minister Narendra Modi innauguarated the launch of the 5G services in India yesterday. Nunzio Mirtillo, Head of Ericsson Southeast Asia, Oceania, and India in an exclusive conversation with Business Today said that India being second largest mobile internet base market will see exponential growth in consumption of data and subscribers.

"Currently, you have an average consumption of 20 GB per month and a bit more than that. It is expected that on an average consumption will go up to 50 GB per month by 2027," Mirtillo told Business Today.

Ericsson Southeast Asia, Oceania, and India head, Mirtillo expects with this kind of traffic demand, the subscribers of broadband will also increase massively.

"With that kind of traffic demand, the subscribers of broadband will also increase from 800 million to 1.2 billion and out of which 500 million will be of 5G. The demand will increase because of subscribers and because of usage, " he added. "Without 5G you can't cope with that big increase," Mirtillo explained.

According to him, the release of spectrum has come perfectly on time. He believes that roll out of 5G will give a final push to lndia and will help in bridging the digital divide. "You will remove financial and social divide. It will give a push to start-ups to build use case and export them all over the world and will Make-in-India better and advance," the South Asia Ericsson head said.

Explaining the importance of Indian market for Ericsson, Mirtillo said, "India in a way for us is a very strategic market. India is very big country because of huge volumes and because India is at the forefront of innovation. It's a place where you need latest cutting-edge technology. And it is fantastic place for Ericsson as it will allow Ericsson to stay on the edge of Innovation," he said.

He also said that to be competitive in India means to be competitive in rest of the world.

"We are investing in India because of competence and because of the demographic dividend. We have 22,000 employees in India," Mirtillo said.

Calling Ericcson a real actor of Make-in-India , he said "We have our factory in India. And basically, we produce 90-100 per cent of our technology in India so we are real actor of Make-in-India in India."