Indians spend over three hours a day on smartphones: Ericsson ConsumerLab study

Indians are spending more time on their smartphones than ever before with data usage growing at a quick pace, a new study has found.

According to a study by Ericsson ConsumerLab, Indians are glued to their smartphones as they check their handsets 77 times a day on average. Overall, Indians spend more than three hours every day using their smartphones with a third of the total time spent on apps.

The report, released on Tuesday, studied how app usage and smartphones are changing consumer behaviour and expectations about mobile broadband performance. The study had a sample size of 4,000 Android smartphone users across 18 cities along with 2,000 users across 15 cities.

Consumers are not just using mobile data for social media but also for business purposes and shopping online. The report revealed that 11 per cent of working professionals shop online using smartphones while at work. Also, data usage on smartphones has tripled for users more than 40 year old, the report found.

The report states that there has been a 63 per cent increase in app usage and 20 per cent rise in average time spent by smartphone users over the past two years. The main factors influencing the smartphone mobile data experience for Indian consumers are indoor coverage, speed and network availability. People are spending more time watching videos while having dinner and shopping.

Also, network performance shapes smartphone behaviour with satisfied users experiencing three times better web page load times, spending more time streaming videos via apps and using mobile broadband for a longer period of time.

The data speed variances also helps in shaping usage patterns. For instance, smartphone users with high-speed data access spend more time while streaming videos and spend twice the browsing time. On the other hand, those with lower speeds spend 30 per cent more time on social media, two times on chat apps and close to 23 minutes on offline games.

"Maturity is an important dimension in mobile broadband behaviour. Mature users consume almost twice as much data as new users," says Ajay Gupta, Vice President-Strategy and Marketing, Ericsson India. "As consumers explore more apps and services relevant to their interests and needs, mobile broadband usage is set to grow."