Case in point: While the just-ended cricket World Cup may have boosted mobile data usage by over 4% sequentially in the December quarter for the top three telcos, that will translate only into relatively modest sequential revenue growth – at best 1% – since consumers invariably have large chunks of unused data, precluding mass upgrades to higher value plans. Furthermore, some digital viewing of World Cup action on smartphones was via WiFi and not mobile data.
But the saving grace this quarter is likely to be the festive season and the slew of assembly elections in multiple states (Rajasthan, Chattisgarh, MP and Mizoram), coupled with 5G user additions by Jio and Airtel and extra days during the October-December period.
This, analysts, estimate could potentially boost overall data usage levels by almost 7-8% sequentially, which, in turn, could drive around 3-3.5% sequential growth in sectoral India mobile revenues during the current quarter.
“The World Cup factor will have pushed up data usage levels north of 4% sequentially in Q3FY24 for the top 3 telcos, but it’s likely to at best trigger only around 1% revenue upside on-quarter for them as data packs, typically, tend to be under-utilised, which limits possibility of consumers upgrading to higher value packs,” Prashant Singhal, Emerging Markets, Technology, Media & Telecom leader, EY India, told ET.
The top 3 telcos collectively reported 3% and 2.4% sequential growth in India mobile revenues in Q1FY24 and Q2FY24 respectively as per company data. .
At press time, Jio, Airtel and Vi did not respond to ET’s emailed queries.
In recent times, sporting events like the IPL had boosted telcos’ data usage levels in the fiscal first quarter. Jio and Airtel had reported 8% and 4.2% sequential growth in average monthly data usage per user to 25 GB and 21.1 GB respectively, further helped by the rapid uptake of 5G. Even without 5G, Vi had reported 3.82% sequential growth in data usage to 16.04 GB in the June quarter as feature phone users had upgraded to 4G devices to catch the IPL action live.
Sectoral analysts, though, said mapping digital viewership trends during the cricket World Cup with the earlier IPL event is not strictly an apples-to-apples comparison.
“Digital viewership during the World Cup likely peaked only in the big matches featuring India, in some major matches involving other top teams and the final, unlike during an IPL event where viewership level was largely consistent throughout the 20-overs competition,” said Singhal.