Mobile services revenue to grow at 5.4% CAGR to $39.3 bn by 2029

The continued rise in service penetration, especially in rural and underserved markets, and growth in the 5G-led mobile data services segment is set to boost India's mobile services revenue to a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 5.4% to $39.3 billion in 2029 from $30.2 billion in 2023 boosted by, a report said.

However, mobile voice service revenue is set to fall 2.5% annually due to the growing consumer preference for internet-based communication services and bundling of free voice minutes with mobile service plans, analytics firm GlobalData said. It added that this would lead to a drop in the voice average revenue per user (ARPU) levels.

But mobile data services will offset that drop and help total mobile services market to maintain strong growth till 2029, GlobalData said.


Mobile data service revenue is expected to rise at 9.3% CAGR between 2024 and 2029, driven by growing availability of 4G and 5G networks across the country, and increasing consumption of mobile data as adoption of higher-ARPU yielding 5G data plans increase. "The average monthly data usage over mobile networks is forecast to increase from 23.9GB in 2024 to 51.5GB in 2029, driven by the growing consumption of online video and social media content over smartphones on the back of data-centric packages offered by telcos," said Hrushikesh Mahananda, a telecom research analyst at GlobalData.

The firm said that while 4G will remain the leading mobile technology in terms of subscriptions till 2026, 5G subscriptions will surpass 4G to account for 67% share of the total mobile subscriptions in 2029, driven by ongoing 5G expansions.

The surge in 5G subscriptions will also be helped by increasing demand and wider availability of 5G-enabled smartphones and promotional 5G plans with value-added benefits.